KELLY BAUM: I think it's possible to understand this painting, New York #2, as an abstract evocation of a nocturnal cityscape.

NARRATOR: The industrial forms and futuristic feel of Romanian-born Hedda Stern’s painting are a nod to her European Surrealist roots. Kelly Baum, Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Curator of Contemporary Art.

KELLY BAUM: What we see might very well be the moon rising over Manhattan, over an elevated subway line, over a highway at night. And the bits of light that appear towards the bottom of the canvas, perhaps those are streetlamps; perhaps they represent the headlights of cars. It's an abstract painting that expresses a love for the architecture and infrastructure of the city.

NARRATOR: The Abstract Expressionist movement grew, in part, out of Surrealism—influenced by the many European Surrealists who immigrated to the U.S. before, during, and after the Second World War. In a 1981 interview, Sterne described how her own artistic practice was affected after arriving in the U.S. in 1941.

HEDDA STERNE: When I came here, I became totally enthralled visually with the United States so I became like a [laughs] premature pop artist. I started painting my kitchen, the kitchen stove, the bathroom appliances, everything where I lived. Then I went out and I painted Ford cars and the elevated. And then it gradually became more, more, and more abstract. I would start from agricultural machinery but it was very abstracted. I would start from the structure of the bridges in New York and they were very, very abstracted.