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In “Burning City,” the calm still water, the mirror reflecting the fire in it, is at once that true and distorted image. At the same time, a mirror is also a symbol of vanitas, the vanity of human existence. Thus, the mirror’s reflection, together with flowers and fragile transparent glass in “Flowers”, broken egg shells in “Still Life with Mirror” and “Broken Eggs” and fallen dry leaves in “Dead Leaves,” represent the transience of life. In the same characteristic way, Pregel uses the image of fortune cards: “In Pregel’s paintings the motif of cards brings in the nuance of mystery and at the same time the feeling of melancholy and solitude. . . . The same theme of the relationship between the cards, mystery and solitude can be found in Russian emigré poetry.” A good example of this representation is the still life with flowers, “Flowers,” in the style of vanitas. The pack of cards is lying on the table by the vase, creating an impression of a mystery, but also of an abandoned game.

The striking “Still Life with Mirror” demonstrates the complexity of Pregel’s inner life and her relationship with the outside world. The mirror, the part of the still life with Renaissance attributes of the vanitas, reflects the door, the interior space, the window and the modern rectangular contemporary city, which contrasts with Pregel’s still life and her interior, and is distant and separated from her world.

The motif of the door and the window, the separation between the exterior and interior, constantly appears in Pregel’s works. Pregel always worked in her studio located in her huge apartment in Manhattan, across the street from Central Park. When asked for her reasons for not painting outside, she always answered that she felt harassed by the ambling and curious crowds. A more likely reason, however, becomes apparent through her works. Given her history, Pregel, as a person, never felt comfortable in the new surrounding of her outside world, and she also remained an estranged artist. Belonging to the older school of painters, she never entirely embraced new trends in painting, then fashionable in the United States, such as Abstract Expressionism, the movement that was becoming increasingly popular in 1940, when Pregel came to New York City. Thus, in order to paint, she needed to inhabit an environment in which she was comfortable working, an environment that she created inside her apartment and studio. That environment became the extension of her inner world, in which she felt contained and secure.