“I’d have no use for Paradise if it wasn’t like France.”
— Biala, Letter to Jack Tworkov, December 3, 1947
Galerie Pavec is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Paris in thirty-eight years of the celebrated ex-pat painter Janice Biala. The exhibition “Biala: l’espirt Français” spans four decades and focuses on several of the artist’s most revered themes—still life, interiors, and street views. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring a foreword by Pauline Pavec, an introduction by Biala scholar Jason Andrew, and a reprint of a rare 1952 essay by the noted French art critic Guy Weelen.
Biala (b. 1903, Biala, Poland; d. September 24, 2000, Paris, France) was a Polish-born American painter known in Paris and New York for her sublime assimilation of the School of Paris and the New York School of Abstract Expressionism. During her eight-decade career, her work was characterized by a modernist reinterpretation of classical themes of landscapes, still-life, and portraiture, animated gesturally with punctuated brush work held fast by her keen eye for observation.
“At Galerie Pavec, we are committed to bringing back into the light singular artists, often women, whose importance has not been fully recognized by history. It is in this spirit that Biala’s work immediately found a resonance in me. Her work immediately struck me with its strength, its independence, and the way it bridges two artistic worlds: Paris and New York. Biala embodies this transatlantic dialogue that shaped the entire twentieth century and it’s thrilling to bring this work back to Paris.”
– Pauline Pavec, Galerie Pavec
Paris played a vital role in shaping her life and art, serving as both a creative haven and a lifelong muse. She told the French novelist and art theorist André Malraux it was because of Porthos, the protagonist of The Three Musketeers, that she became an artist. She first arrived in Paris in April 1930, and through a fateful encounter met the English novelist Ford Madox Ford with whom she lived and collaborated. Seizing the time and the opportunity, Biala immersed herself in the thriving artistic and intellectual community in Paris and identified herself more broadly with European culture. She forged life-long relationships with modernist giants like Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, George Antheil, Constanti Brancusi, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.
Biala was fierce, bold, and self-determined, and Paris offered her freedom and inspiration—a stark contrast to the constraints she experienced as a woman in America. The streets, the cafés, and the light of Paris infused her work with a unique lyrical clarity. Even after the death of Ford and her heroic escape from the Nazi regime at the onset of World War II, Biala longed for Paris, eventually booking passage on one of the first passenger vessels allowed to return after the war.
She eventually settled permanently in Paris as a legendary American expat. In the studio, Biala found herself at the intersection of the School of Paris and the New York School of Abstract Expressionism—aesthetic approaches she knew firsthand. In 1949, Biala received a special honorable mention in the Prix de la Critique—the first time a foreigner earned the award. The distinctiveness of the work aligned her with major galleries and gallerists like Jeanne Bucher (Galerie Jeanne Bucher), Jean-Robert Arnaud (Galerie du Point Cardinal), and Galerie Jacob to name a few. Biala’s work can be found in the collections of the Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP), the Centre Pompidou (MNAM-CCI), the Fonds Régionaux d’Art Contemporain (FRAC), Musée de Grenoble, the Musée Ingres Bourdelle, and more recently the collection of Musée d’Art Classique de Mougins among others.
For Biala, Paris wasn’t just a backdrop; it was central to her identity as an artist and intellect. The city’s architecture and rhythm appear throughout her work, often not in literal depictions, but through a distinctly personalized sense of balance, clarity, and lyricism. Until her death in 2000, Paris remained Biala’s spiritual and creative home—a city where her artistic vision matured, flourished, and ultimately found its most resonant expression.
It has been thirty-eight years since the last solo exhibition of Biala’s work was organized by a gallery in Paris. This exhibition celebrates the artist that near left.
— Jason Andrew, 2025