Hidden Cities: A Photobook

BRASSAÏ
9 September 1899 – 8 July 1984
BIOGRAPHY
Brassaï 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.
Gyula (Julius) Halász, Brassaï (pseudonym)
was born on 9 September 1899 in Brassó,
Kingdom of Hungary (today Brașov,
Romania) to an Armenian mother and a
Hungarian father. He grew up speaking
Hungarian and Romanian. When he was
three his family lived in Paris for a year,
while his father, a professor of French
literature, taught at the Sorbonne.
As a young man, Halász studied painting
and sculpture at the Hungarian Academy
of Fine Arts (Magyar Képzőművészeti
Egyetem) in Budapest. He joined a cavalry
regiment of the Austro-Hungarian army,
where he served until the end of the First
World War.
He cited Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as an
artistic influence.
Following WWI, his hometown of Brassó,
and the rest of Transylvania, was transferred
from the Kingdom of Hungary to Romania
at the Treaty of Trianon. Halász left for
Berlin in 1920 where he worked as a
journalist for the Hungarian papers Keleti
and Napkelet. He started studies at the
Berlin-Charlottenburg Academy of Fine
Arts (Hochschule für Bildende Künste),
now Universität der Künste Berlin. There
he became friends with several older
Hungarian artists and writers, including
the painters Lajos Tihanyi and Bertalan Pór,
and the writer György Bölöni, each of whom
later moved to Paris and became part of the
Hungarian circle.
In 1924, Halasz moved to Paris to live, where
he would stay for the rest of his life. He began
teaching himself the French language by
reading the works of Marcel Proust. Living
among the gathering of young artists in
the Montparnasse quarter, he took a job as
a journalist. He soon became friends with
the American writer Henry Miller, and the
French writers Léon-Paul Fargue and Jacques
Prévert. In the late 1920s, he lived in the same
hotel as Tihanyi.
Miller later played down Brassai’s claims
of friendship. In 1976 he wrote of Brassai:
“Fred [Perles] and I used to steer shy of
him – he bored us.” Miller added that the
biography Brassai had written of him was
typically “padded”, “full of factual errors,
full of suppositions, rumors, documents he
filched which are largely false or give a false
impression.”
Halász’s job and his love of the city, whose
streets he often wandered late at night, led to
photography. He first used it to supplement
some of his articles for more money, but
rapidly explored the city through this
medium, in which he was tutored by his fellow
Hungarian André Kertész. He later wrote that
he used photography “to capture the beauty
of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and
to capture Paris by night.” Using the name of
his birthplace, Halász went by the pseudonym
“Brassaï,” which means “from Brasso.”
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
Night does not show things,
it suggests them. It disturbes
and surprises us with its
strangeness. It liberates forces
within us which are dominated
by our reason during the
“daytime.
“
Strand’s quote encourages artists, including
photographers, to embrace the idea that creativity
and inspiration can be found anywhere. It emphasizes
the importance of being open to the beauty and
possibilities that surround us, no matter how mundane
or ordinary they may initially seem. The quote
suggests that the artist’s perception and ability to
see and appreciate the world are crucial in finding
extraordinary moments and capturing them through
their chosen medium.
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.
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.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).
In 1979 Brassaï was inducted into the
International Photography Hall of Fame and
Museum.
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