Brassaï

French Photographer , born Transylvania (1899 - 1984)

La Colonne Morris dans le Brouillard

1932, printed ca. 1960

Brassaï made his name as a chronicler of the night. His book Paris de nuit (1932) surveys the activities and topography of the city after dark, from the louche bars of Montparnasse to the trees and bridges flanking the Seine. The dreamy atmosphere of Brassaï's photographs is intensified by his preference for shooting on rainy and foggy nights. "Fog and rain . . . tend to soften contrasts," he wrote. "Steam, as well as wet ground, act as reflectors and diffuse the light of the lamps in all directions. Therefore, it is necessary to photograph certain subjects in the rain, since it is the rain that makes them 'photogenic.'"

In 1932 the publisher Tériade asked Brassaï to photograph some sculpture by Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881–1973). The commission led to a lifelong friendship between the men. This photograph is from a later session, when in 1939 Life magazine commissioned Brassaï to make a series of photographs of Picasso on the occasion of his large retrospective exhibition opening at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Brassaï recalled their photo sessions:

The danger of bombings seemed to have been averted for a time. The city was beginning to look more normal in the daytime. . . . I wanted to photograph him in his new studio, which he was not yet living in, and in the cafés of Saint-Germain-des-Près, where he had been a regular for five years. . . . I took a few photos of Picasso having lunch at the Brasserie Lipp. . . .I also took some of him seated next to the enormous potbelly stove with its long flue pipe, bought from a collector. . . . He is delighted by the portrait of him with his extraordinary stove, a portrait that later appeared in Life. (Brassaï, Conversations with Picasso. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 53–55.)

[Picasso Near the Stove in His Workshop, rue des Grands Augustins, Paris]

1939, printed 1960s

Brassaï French, born Romania (Transylvania)

About the Artist

Brassaï captured the essence of the city in his photographs, published as his first collection in the 1933 book entitled Paris de nuit (Paris by Night). His book gained great success, resulting in being called "the eye of Paris" in an essay by Henry Miller. In addition to photos of the seedier side of Paris, Brassai portrayed scenes from the life of the city's high society, its intellectuals, its ballet, and the grand operas. He had been befriended by a French family who gave him access to the upper classes. Brassai photographed many of his artist friends, including Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and several of the prominent writers of his time, such as Jean Genet and Henri Michaux.

Young Hungarian artists continued to arrive in Paris through the 1930s and the Hungarian circle absorbed most of them. Kertèsz immigrated to New York City in 1936. Brassai befriended many of the new arrivals, including Ervin Marton, a nephew of Tihanyi, whom he had been friends with since 1920. Marton developed his own reputation in street photography in the 1940s and 1950s. Brassaï continued to earn a living with commercial work, also taking photographs for the U.S. magazine Harper's Bazaar.^[6]

He was a founding member of the Rapho agency, created in Paris by Charles Rado in 1933.

Brassaï's photographs brought him international fame. In 1948, he had a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, which travelled to George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois.^[7] MoMA exhibited more of Brassai's works in 1953, 1956, and 1968.^[8] He was presented at the Rencontres d'Arles festival in France in 1970 (screening at the Théâtre Antique, Brassaï by Jean-Marie Drot), in 1972 (screening Brassaï si, Vominino by René Burri), and in 1974 (as guest of honour).

Brassaï (French: [bʁa'saj]; pseudonym of Gyula Halász; 9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984) was a Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist,^[1] writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the world wars.

In the early 21st century, the discovery of more than 200 letters and hundreds of drawings and other items from the period 1940 to 1984 has provided scholars with material for understanding his later life and career.

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