BILL FISHER: My name is Bill Fisher and I’m one of the sons of Don and Doris Fisher. The Duane Hanson Man with Ladder was displayed, like most of their art, in the Gap offices. It happened to be in the lobby of one of the floors of the building and a day would not go by where someone would walk in and look at it and consider it as a real figure doing work because there’s always some level of construction going on, renovation, remodel in the offices, and it would be an easy  thing for people to confuse.

When they first saw the piece, they weren’t really sure if it fit their collection, until my mother walked behind the man to see that he was wearing a pair of Gap jeans. And it immediately connected to her, and she walked around the other side and she said, ‘Don, we have to get this piece.’ And that’s how they ended up with the piece in their collection.

And I think they just loved the humanity of the piece. I mean, if you look very carefully, the guy’s got plenty of hair. He’s got a T-shirt, he’s quite well dressed. He could have walked into a Gap store before he came down to paint the building. So I think that that was as much the connection as anything else.