☰

VlogUp

The City of Light and its shadows: Brassa's Paris in pictures | Art and design

The City of Light and its shadows: Brassaï's Paris – in pictures

Called ‘the Eye of Paris’ by his friend the author Henry Miller, the legendary photographer created a striking body of work that documented high – and low – society in Paris between the first and second world wars. A retrospective at Foam Amsterdam, until 4 December, traces his career

@mlestone Main image: Gala soiree at Maxim’s, 1949. Photograph: Estate Brassaï Succession

Tue 8 Oct 2019 07.00 BST Last modified on Thu 26 Mar 2020 14.27 GMT

  • Amoureux dans un Petit Cafe, Quartier Italie, circa 1932

    Brassaï (1899-1984) created countless celebrated images of 1930s Parisian life. 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. All photographs: Estate Brassaï Succession

  • Untitled, Paris, 1937

    The exhibition at Amsterdam’s Foam gallery traces his career through more than 170 vintage prints, plus a selection of drawings, a sculpture and documentary material

  • La Môme Bijou, Bar de la Lune, Montmartre, 1932

    Gyula Halász was born in Brassó, Hungary (now Brașov, Romania) and lived most of his adult life in Paris. He studied painting and sculpture, and as a young man worked as a journalist in Berlin before moving to Paris, but soon discovered that his strongest talent was for photography – especially portraits

  • Streetwalker near Place d’Italie, 1932

    To reserve his real name for his paintings, he signed journalistic work, caricatures and photographs with “Brassaï” (of Brassó’)

  • A Morris column in the fog, Avenue de l’Observatoire, 1934

    Paris’s monuments, picturesque spots, scenes from daily life and architectural details – such as this advertising column – are present in Brassaï’s work as a reflection of the irresistible fascination the artist had with the French capital

  • A Monastic Brothel, Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, 1931

    In his quest to cover every facet of Paris, Brassaï also immersed himself in the city’s darker side. The gang members, outcasts, prostitutes and drug addicts might have represented the least cosmopolitan aspect of Paris, but was more alive and more authentic

  • Gala Soirée at Maxim’s, 1949

    One of the city’s most famous restaurants, Maxim’s was frequented by Nazi officials during the second world war then shuttered by the French resistance and subsequently reopened to receive the likes of Aristotle Onassis and Maria Callas in the 1950s

  • Fat Claude and her Girlfriend at Le Monocle, 1932

    Brassaï’s best photographs of the 1930s describe the nocturnal atmosphere of the French capital and the people who lived on its fringes or in the shadows

  • Billiard player, Boulevard Rochechouart, 1932-33

    Brassaï is said to have given up painting because he was uninterested in shutting himself up in ‘the four walls of an atelier all alone’ – and so he ended up exploring all parts of Paris

  • View through Pont Royal toward Pont Solferino, 1933

    Here he captures another kind of nightlife

  • Passage de Clichy, 1930-32

    ‘Night does not show things, it suggests them,” Brassaï once said. ‘It disturbs and surprises us with its strangeness. It liberates forces within us which are dominated by our reason during the daytime’

  • On the Boulevard Saint Jacques, 1930-32

    Henry Miller – who lived in the capital during the 1930s – called Brassaï ‘the eye of Paris’
Topics

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaJmiqa6vsMOeqqKfnmS0orjLnqmyZ2Jlfnp7zpyraGhoZLCqwNhmpp9lnJ60qcCMm6maq6OWtm68wKugrGWZo3qxtcKtrKudo2K9qbvTqJ6rmaCdxg%3D%3D

Jenniffer Sheldon

Update: 2024-03-19

<< The forgotten story of ... Dario Dubois, Argentinas face-painted footballer

Goo Goo Dolls' John Rzeznik Welcomes Baby Girl >>