Brassai

Brassaï is one of the most famous photographers in history. In the early 1930s, he sets out with his camera on long nocturnal walks through Paris. The depictions of people and environments that emerge when darkness descends over the city become his breakthrough. Through more than two hundred vintage photographic prints, this volume – published on the occasion of a major retrospective hosted in Stockholm – presents an in-depth and original window into Brassaï’s oeuvre.

Brassaï (1899–1984) was born in Hungary, but France, and especially Paris, became his home. Here he begins a new era in photography with his penetrating images of the city. But Brassaï travelled all over Europe – including to Italy and Spain – as well as to the United States, creating a photographic trail that bears the imprint of his curiosity and his style.
The full chronological range of his production is unveiled here, from his first shots influenced by an affinity with the Surrealist movement to his iconic images of Parisian pleasure-seekers and socialites. Particular attention is given to his images of ‘graffiti’, captured by Brassaï during his decades-long exploration of the walls of Paris, a mark of his bond with the visual arts and artists such as Jean Dubuffet. Finally, the photographs dedicated to the female nude and to fashion, portraits of artist friends and children, and the small paradoxes and “involuntary sculptures” that reality offered to his gaze and which Brassaï, a creator of images, masterfully grasped in the immediacy of the moment.