Ralph Fassanella painted a subject with which he was deeply familiar. Talking about “Subway Riders,” the artist reflected: "I'd ride the subway every day... I'd ride and ride and sketch and sketch. I love the subway. It pulls the city together, pulls people together in a magic way. Here I show the subway riders at night after a hard day's work. Everyone is separate, alone, but very much together. It's noisy with the creaks and squeals, but peaceful too, because we move to a rhythm and cadence that gets inside us; that's comforting, like the noise of the city itself." Fasanella grew up in Greenwich Village, and worked as an iceman and union organizer, producing paintings in what would become known as urban folk style.

Ralph Fasanella’s long and prolific artistic career began by chance, when a friend suggested he take up painting for physical therapy at the age of 31. In the 40 years that followed, Fasanella produced hundreds of paintings about the social injustices faced by the working class—an extension of the artist’s involvement with the labor movement in the late 1940s and his activity in trade unions. His paintings particularly depicted historic worker strikes, parades, community meetings, and political events, including the infamous the Bread and Roses strike of 1912. Fasanella’s canvases were filled with buildings, scenes of daily life, and newspaper headlines, rendered in a densely detailed, pattern-based style.