Thomas Hardy was the subject of several drawings, etchings and oil portraits by Strang, becoming possibly the artist’s most famous sitter. Strang probably first met Hardy in London in the early 1890s when both were members of the Art Workers Guild, a circle of artists and literary figures interested in the promotion of the applied arts in the community. The two shared similar concerns - Hardy’s writing, like Strang’s images, was both visionary and naturalistic and his characters, like many of the figures in Strang’s compositions, were often the victims declining social circumstance.