During World War II, Fernand Léger fled Nazi-occupied Paris for the United States, and he spent the war years traveling and teaching across the country, notably at Mills College, in California. He participated in the 1942 Artists in Exile exhibition at Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York, together with other exiled artists. In this painting, Léger captures the energy and dynamism of modern life that he experienced in New York, where he was fascinated by the skyscrapers and bright neon signs on Broadway. He translates this vibrancy into whirling forms and large bands of primary colors that swirl on the surface, free from the restrictions of geometric shapes and lines that characterize Léger’s earlier Cubist-influenced works.