This study gives a clue to how the painting Hug developed from an earlier work, Solarium. Solarium showed a number of patients and family members in an inner waiting area of a modern hospital. Each figure exhibited different signs of how they were reacting to their hospitalization. These reactions varied from anxiety, solitary withdrawal, denial and escapism, to sharing moments of family support. The central figures are an elderly couple, posed for by Robert’s parents, Bill and Isabel. In this study, Robert focuses exclusively on this central couple. One of Robert’s challenges at this time was how to signal which figures were patients and which figures were family visitors. His solution was to picture patients in pajamas and housecoats, often with cumbersome I-V poles in tow. In this study, it appears that the man is the patient, though it’s not quite clear. In the finished painting, the woman is the patient. In the study, the I-V pole acts as a framing device drawing attention to the couple’s faces as they share a moment of intimacy, made all the more poignant by the health challenge that they confront together. In the finished painting, the I-V pole cuts between the two figures, and the chord going from the bag of solution to the patient’s arm is treated as an elaborate and somewhat confusing knot.