Alice Neel and James Hunter ran into each other by chance, resulting in him sitting for one of her portraits. However, due to the increase of ground forces in South Vietnam, Hunter was drafted to fight, scheduled to leave in a weeks time. He never turned up for the second sitting. Neel marked the work finished in its incompleteness by signing its back. Not only is the work a portrait of James Hunter himself, but a symbol of the context of the time.