Beginning in the mid-1920s Jo became her husband's only model. It was she who thought up the names for a number of her husband's paintings, including one of his most famous oil paintings, "Nighthawks". Despite their complicated relationship, she helped when her husband felt insecure about a painting in progress, as in, for example, the case of "Five A.M." (1937). As late as 1936, Jo reported that her husband was highly competitive and that her starting a work would frequently inspire Edward to start his own. In "The Lonely City" Olivia Laing discusses Jo's career and how it foundered because Edward was "profoundly opposed to its existence. Edward didn't just fail to support Jo's painting, but rather worked actively to discourage it, mocking and denigrating the few things she did manage to produce".