Dedicated to overlooked artists from the 20th century, the Spotlight section of Frieze Masters is a natural fit for Berry Campbell. The New York gallery has developed a formidable reputation for championing neglected artists from the period, and here it showcases a series of outstanding paintings by the late Polish American painter Janice Biala, who passed away in 2000.
These lyrical, quietly powerful paintings deftly bridge the worlds of Parisian modernism and New York abstraction, schools from two cities where she spent much of her working life. Works on view here depict interiors, still lifes, cityscapes, and figures, and, taken together, balance expressive gesture with compositional restraint. Biala’s work reflects a synthesis of the postwar School of Paris’s sensitivity to form and tone with the boldness of Abstract Expressionism, yet these paintings are uniquely hers: intimate, poetic, and attuned to the relationship between color and shape.
“We love her whole body of work, from the 1930s all the way to the ’90s—it’s incredible,” said gallery owner Christine Berry. “We decided to bring her to London, because we felt like this subject was very European and has a great connection to what’s happening over here. People are interested in women from this time period, and her sensibility is a mix of European and American.” Works at the booth are priced from $20,000 to $100,000.
—Arun Kakar, Artsy
