Blumka Gallery was established in the 1880s in Vienna. In 1938 Leopold Blumka [1897-1973] left Austria for Switzerland, and in 1941 came to the United States where he opened a new gallery in New York. Blumka was able to get his gallery stock out of Austria to Switzerland, and brought some of it with him to the United States. The remainder was in storage with the Galerie Fischer intil the late 1940s when he was able to import it into the US. A third shipment went via England to the US, arriving in 1944. [See Records of the American Commission for the Protection and Salvage of Artistic and Historic Monuments in War Areas (The Roberts Commission), Microfilm M1944/reel 13, United States National Archives]. Leopold Blumka married Ruth Zickel [d. 1994], also an expatriate who had been born in Munich, who went into the family business with him.