Smoker #9 isolates a model’s sensual mouth, removing it from a social context and even from her body. The painting’s slick surface looks like a billboard advertisement. In the 1960s and ‘70s, advertising campaigns promoting smoking increased rapidly, as did the release of cigarette brands aimed at the female market. Smoker #9 features many of the hallmarks of Wesselmann’s works: the look of Hollywood glamour, the eroticized female body, and the fetishized act of smoking.