Ford + Biala: A Fateful Meeting

Originally published by ProQuest
Contributed by Jason Andrew

There must be young men and women, of genius even, who are unsuited to gain their early living at normal occupations, or whose feelings will not let them do so. For these New York is the best place in America... but it is not a good place because it does not arrange itself to suit their necessities. Until it does so it must be content to see such young men and women drift... into expatriation. For them there is... Paris.

Ford Madox Ford, New York is Not America1

When the young American painter, Janice Biala, met the great English novelist Ford Madox Ford, she was twenty-six and he was fifty-seven. They met in Paris on May Day, 1930, at one of Ford's regular Thursday afternoon salons. She had arrived from New York just five days prior, travelling at the invitation of her best friend Eileen Lake, an aspiring poet.

Lured to the gathering at Ford's with the promise of meeting Ezra Pound, whom she much admired, Biala instead found herself alongside Ford, the incorrigible romancer. Ford, legendary and proud, perched himself on the edge of the long divan, and in the dim light the pair 'seem to be alone...' recalled Ford in his collection of poems dedicated to Biala.2 Their meeting was the kind of spontaneous fiction for which Ford was famous - the principal character being himself.

Biala hoped that France would offer a new life she so desperately desired. She had a massive fascination with France. As a child she collected 'as many books as one could find on the subject'. These well-worn novels and picture books, tucked secretly under her bed, fed her already excessive imagination. She would later tell French art critic René Barotte that it was because of Porthos that she became an artist.3 The Three Musketeers was her favourite.