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In 1965 Burchfield shared a retrospective view of his life in autobiographical notes associated with his artwork. He disclosed that from January 1918 “until the time of my departure for the Armed Services, my main interest was Humanity, not Nature. It was a bitter winter. I tried to show the hardness of human lives and the struggles, which led naturally into making ‘portraits’ of individual houses, designed to show just what sort of people lived in them. Many were social or economic comments…. In others I tried to express the ingrown lives of solitary people.” This painting pits a cloaked, striding figure against a street of sagging, startled looking buildings that raise questions about identity and place. --Nancy Weekly, 2007