Janice Biala

Janice Biala was born Schenehaia, Tworkovsky in 1903 in Bialystock, Poland. Biala immigrated to New York in 1913 with her older brother Yakov (Jack Tworkov). In the early 1920s, Biala made her way to Provincetown, Massachusetts. As she established herself in New York, she changed her name at the suggestion of William Zorach from Janice Tworkov to simply “Biala”. In the 1930s, Biala traveled to Paris where she met the sculptor Constantin Brancusi, the painter Henri Matisse, and writer Gertrude Stein. Biala began exhibiting her work in Paris as early as 1938 making her one of the earliest Americans in Paris. In 1939, Biala returned to New York and established herself among a rising generation of artists defining themselves as the New York School.Throughout her artistic life she developed many acquaintances and friendships with creative visionaries such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell, and Willem de Kooning. Biala’s work can be found in Phillips Collection, Whitney, Smithsonian, Carnegie Art Museum, Kemper Museum, Musée National d'Art Moderne, and Musée Cantonal de Beaux-Arts.