Bernhardt began painting the Pink Panther after she arrived at the Pink Palace Hotel (also called the Royal Hawaiian Hotel), located on a sandy beach in Waikiki, Oahu, not far from an eighteen-foot bronze sculpture of King Kamehameha I, Hawaii’s greatest warrior leader, who is usually adorned with tons of giant lei made from eight types of bright pink orchids. The pinkness of this trip continued after checking into the hotel, which had pink bath towels, pink sheets, pink eye masks for sleeping, pink rugs, pink beach chairs, pink beach towels, pink stationery, pink sunsets, pink pancakes for breakfast and Pink Panther on the TV screens.

After Bernhardt kept seeing videos of the Panther – lying on a giant pink bed and while she strolled the hotel grounds, her son Khalifa kept watching Pink Panther videos from his cell phone – she decided the Panther might look good on large-format canvases and large-format lithographs.

Bernhardt’s “I Love New York” features her Pink Panther in a tribute to the famous city.