Unlike other local artists at this time, Russell Clark often painted street scenes showing people busy with their everyday lives. This type of social realism was very similar to the work produced by the Ash Can School of American painting in the 1920s and 1930s. This work dates from a time when Clark was working as a commercial artist in Wellington. It was one of several in which a high viewpoint provided a bird's eye view of the suburb and the various activities in the street below. Clark's ability to find the significant details in an everyday scene made him an excellent illustrator and contributed to the success of his lively drawings in school publications and in the New Zealand Listener.