Dr. Sandra Phillips observes Kertész's relationship to the clochard: "The social awareness that Kertész developed in Hungary accounts in great part for his choices of subject, as well as for his acceptance of the raw, 'inartistic' photograph of the amateur or documentor. The 'common man' was a persistent concern in Hungarian culture. We sense Kertész's identification with the clochard, the poor but self-sufficient man set apart from the ordinary citizen. Kertész captured these solitary figures again and again; he befriended some of them, asked to see where they spent the winter months, and photographed their home, the 'Hotel of Hope.' Gypsies and clowns are natural, unconventional, almost folk characters, excluded from the proper adult world, and Kertész treated them with mystery and admiration." (c.f., Phillips et al., André Kertész, Of Paris and New York, p. 29.)