Hester did a series of street scenes in the early Forties that have striking compositional similarities: usually of two women standing together in the street. She shared this interest in urban subjects with a number of her contemporaries - Albert Tucker, Sidney Nolan, Noel Counihan and Harry de Hartog. These artists had been influenced, in turn, by the Russian painter Danila Vassilieff and the Viennese-born Jewish artist Yosl Bergner. Both had arrived in Melbourne in 1937.'

Excerpt from Burke, J., Joy Hester, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1981, p. 22