The strong lines, bold colours and simplified figures in 'The Bridge' reflect Kowalska’s naïve style of painting. Her simple style disguises a more complex message in which a series of contrasting images are linked literally and symbolically by the bridge. As a happy couple, centre-stage in the foreground, look forward to new opportunities, a young woman signals across the water apparently in distress. Behind the bridge is an idyllic pastoral scene, but as in Kowalska’s earlier painting, 'Shtetl', a horse-drawn cart swallowed up by the narrowing perspective suggests a narrowing of opportunities or a disappearing way of life. Born in Poland, Kowalska lived in Berlin and then Paris, where she married and also worked as a journalist. She was associated with the École de Paris (a loose group of mainly Jewish émigré painters).