“ This work was painted just shortly after Lempicka arrived in the States. It evokes the hardships of war in Europe, and was displayed in 1941, under the title “Somewhere in Europe”, at the New York Julian Levy Gallery. Exile remained a lifelong obsession with Lempicka. It comes through in several of her paintings: “The Refugees”, 1931; “Before the Storm”, 1936; and “Flight”, 1940. The artist actually experienced two radical breaks in her life: the first when she left Bolshevik Russia in dramatic circumstances in 1918 and the second (better prepared!) in 1939, when she left for the United States.
1940 The Kuffners decided to live in Hollywood, buying a house belonging to the film director King Vidor. De Lempicka threw herself into charitable work in support of wartime in Europe, and was given the rank of Staff Sergeant in the Women’s Emergency Corps (whose uniforms she had designed). She requested American citizenship.”
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