Brassai: Paris by Night

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He was roaming a lot of the streets in the evenings, trying to really understand the communities, the activities that were taking place at night,” says Linde B. He retained a very individual creative vision, however, commenting: “The surreal effect of my pictures was nothing more than reality made fantastic through a particular vision.

Despite his social clout and early professional successes, Brassaï still viewed himself as an outlander of sorts. Continuing his work as a sculptor and painter, he supported himself by working as a journalist, adopting the pseudonym of Brassaï, derived from the name of his native city, Brassó. When 25-year-old Gyula Halász arrived in Paris from his native Hungary in 1924 he’d been trained as an artist and soon found his way into the circles frequented by Picasso, Miró, Dalí and Henry Miller.

I particularly like the quotation from Brassai himself at the beginning – I often feel that nothing is more surreal than reality (especially in these interesting times) and it is always comforting to know that others both now and in the past have felt the same. The results of this project --- a fascinatingly tawdry collection of prostitutes, pimps, madams, transvestites, apaches, and assorted cold-eyed pleasure-seekers --- was published in 1933 as Paris de Nuit, one of the most remarkable of all photographic books. This uniquely modern perspective has inspired a new generation of art critics and historians, and the centenary of Brassaï’s birth was the catalyst for major retrospective exhibitions at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery in Washington, and the Hayward Gallery in London. While his images reflect the glitter and gaiety the city was famous for—the brilliantly lit grand staircase of the Opéra on a gala night, the Eiffel Tower blazing with lights in the shape of shooting stars, cancan girls doing high kicks at the Bal Tabarin, Brassaï also included the grittier side of Paris by night: a row of clochards sleeping under the colonnade of the Bourse de Commerce; an elderly homeless woman dressed in the tattered remnants of her former finery; a ragpicker crouched on the cobblestones, digging through a trashcan. The back alleys, metro stations, and bistros he photographed are at turns hauntingly empty or peopled by prostitutes, laborers, thugs, and lovers.

There is plenty of atmosphere in the pictures and I particularly like the one of two policemen having a quiet cigarette out side their station. I have included shortened (ellipsis) versions of the comments to them, which exists in the comments section of the book. tall x 10-5/8"; black cover; lamination is lifting from cover; crease along top 6" front cover and light corresponding creases to first 2 pp; ca. Beyond such experiences that the book brings, stands the work itself, the effort that Brassaï must have put in to capture such photographs in 1933. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

Forms dance in silent, slow movements beckoning you forward, hinting of a meaning slightly underwater, gently out of grasp. The introduction, by Paul Morand, is elegant and does a good job of describing what Paris was like at that time. When the allies liberated the city in 1944, Brassaï leaned out of his apartment window to watch—he was, as ever, the fearless voyeur. The printing represents arguably the most luscious gravure ever seen, the blacks being so rich and deep that after handling the book one expects to find sooty deposits all over one’s fingers. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.

Brassai was probably more responsible than most for generating the noir genre associated with Paris but that, I think, was a function of his equipment. He captured the grittier aspects of the city, but also documented ballet, opera and high society, including his friends and contemporaries such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Henri Matisse. The current reissue of Paris by Night brings one of the last century’s key photographic works back into print. We’re looking at these views of 1930s Parisian society,” says Lehtinen, “but they’re also these incredible reflections on broader themes of community, labor, sexuality, gender, class, solitude…alienation, strangeness.There, in 1932, he changed his given name, Gyula Halász, to a doctored version of his hometown’s name—his roots as a foreigner remained crucial to his vision and identity. First American edition: the original edition of Paris by Night, published as Paris de Nuit in 1933, contained 64 reproductions of photographs by Brassai, printed in heliogravure.