In the paintings from the 1940s onwards, Olle Olsson Hagalund's paintings were populated by people wandering around the streets among the old houses in his beloved Hagalund. From the mid-1940s onwards, these strolling bodies were replaced by portraits of women that are not portraits, but rather depicted as stories with titles such as Gul hatt (Yellow Hat), Flicka framför spegeln (Girl in Front of the Mirror) or, as here, Grannflickan (Neighbour Girl). He himself said that he never knew what it would be when he started painting. It ‘could be something completely different from what I saw. It will be so much of fairy tale and poem. I'm very amused by painting female figures, doubly amused when I'm also amused by the woman. You see a woman in the street, in a restaurant. Suddenly, you get that thrill.’ (Eric Wennergren, ‘Olle Olsson Hagalund’, Bonniers, Stockholm 1977, pp. 70-72).
Olle Olsson Hagalund does not allow himself to be catalogued. Naivist, expressionist and romantic are terms that are usually used to describe his art. He preferred to call himself a flâneur who spent his life observing the people he met.
In the background behind the girl is a print by Maurice Utrillo that was in Olle Olsson Hagalund's home. There were not many works by other artists there, which points to a special relationship and a sense of belonging with Utrillo.