The collector William Preston Harrison purchased Pedro directly from Luks after examining all the works in his studio. He was delighted with the acquisition, considering it a prime museum piece and definitely portraying a modern character. Harrison even preferred it to the artist’s The Polish Dancer, c. 1927 (Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia), which had been exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum’s Pan-American exhibition in 1925-26 and which Harrison thought to be one of the greatest works in the show. His purchase of the painting out of the artist’s studio may explain why the painting was not mentioned in any of the early literature on Luks. Luks painted the café scene in a somber palette of metallic blue, gray, dark brown, and black. It is enriched by a bravura surface, the paint being laid on so thickly and with such flat, broad strokes that the artist probably built it up with a palette knife. The brushwork is almost coarse in appearance, a treatment complementary to the low-life character that Luks portrayed. As Harrison so perceptively noted, the painting is a "character study" of "a queer looking type of chap with guitar alongside."

The early twentieth century witnessed the transformation of the United States into a modern industrialized society and an international political power. By 1920 more than half of the country’s population lived in urban areas. Seeming to guarantee employment, the cities lured many farmers and African Americans from rural areas. In addition, between 1900 and 1920, 14.5 million immigrants from Europe, Russia, Mexico, and Asia settled here, primarily in urban centers. A new energy was channeled to such cities as New York and Chicago, as massive skyscrapers were erected to furnish much-needed office space and living quarters. Even West Coast cities were affected—the population of Los Angeles tripled between 1900 and 1910; its unplanned urban sprawl and dizzying speed were captured in the zany movies of the Keystone Cops, filmed on the streets of the city.

Art reflected these changing social and economic dynamics. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were still popular. Yet other, more progressive ideas now challenged artists. A strong new commitment to realism emerged in literature and the fine arts.

In Philadelphia and New York, a group of artists centered around Robert Henri captured the vitality of urban American life. These realists depicted the hustle and bustle of city streets, the common pleasures of restaurants and various forms of entertainment. Critics dubbed these realists the “Ash Can School” because of their treatment of unidealized subject matter previously considered unattractive. These artists focused on the inhabitants of cities rather than the cities themselves. Their interest in people also led them to create a significant number of single-figure paintings, conveying the human side of the new America . During the 1910s and 1920s the realist celebration of America spread throughout the country, as artists recorded the neighborhoods and people that made their own cities distinct.