"The image of Anna Karina prepared me for my meeting, in New York a couple of years later, with Galina who is the only one of my Great Muses (there have been minor ones as well) with whom I had a personal relationship (producing two splendid sons), with whom I worked in an objective and empirical manner, and indeed who cooperated with and contributed to creative decisions in the process. She possessed a body awareness and had a self-conscious and well- constructed presentation of her own physicality which gave her an iconic status, even under the constraints of the details of daily life. My entire sculptural output of the decade from 1973-83 was based on her.

'The Galina Series' (1973–1977) shows the route by which I returned from abstraction to the figure. The influence of the strict geometry of my abstract sculpture is evident in most of the work, and indeed is present even in my most recent and objectively arrived at images; for nothing is wasted, and we represent the sum of our experience. 'An American Girl' can be seen as the culmination of the Galina Series of sculpture in which I worked through various formal and abstract figurations, absorbing all sorts of influences, in my search for a via- ble method of depicting the human figure: a figurative language.

I carried out this work from 1973–8. Of the whole group only 'An American Girl', 'Dreaming', and 'Galina X' have recognisable facial features... The headscarf is intended to be reminiscent of a US World War II helmet; it has always seemed to me that the large cranial size of these helmets gave US soldiers of the period a disturbing and paradoxical juvenile appearance. The pose of 'An American Girl' is Romantic, driven by the expression of aggressive consumerism. She is disruptive to the viewer: confident, seductive and relaxed. The figure seems conscious of this, but at the same time it is self-contained, introspective, and completely independent. The geometric articulation of the spine and the almost landscape-like quality of the parts of the sculpture reinforce this enigmatic certitude, while other parts are extremely realistic, human and therefore vulnerable. " – G L