Never had an artist been so preoccupied with her own image as Lempicka: she herself did many self-portraits, and, more especially, spent hours to sitting for photographers, where she would take on the attitude of a professional model. Her long stay in Hollywood, and all her efforts to penetrate the movie world, suggest that she longed to be in the "spotlight". Her "screen test" - with the newsreel producers Pathé in 1932 - shows a supremely self-assured image of her coming down the staircase of her rue Méchain studio, flourishing a seemingly endless cigarette-holder.

De Lempicka regained her taste for living. She convinced her husband to sell his properties in Hungary, perhaps through an intuition of trouble brewing in Europe. Her plan to move to the United States encouraged her to sever all links with the old continent. In her studio she took up more ambitious subjects in preparation for the relaunch of her career in America.

On the 24 February the Kuffners boarded the SS Paris, bound for New York. The artist took a large selection of paintings with her, leaving her daughter Kizette in the care of Adrienne and her husband. In May, she held her first exhibition at the Paul Reinhardt Gallery.