Brassaï was a Hungarian-French photographer, sculptor, medalist, 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.
Background
Gyula (Julius) Halász Brassaï (pseudonym) was born at 9 September 1899 in Brassó, Kingdom of Hungary (today Brașov, Romania). 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.
Education
Brassai studied at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Budapest. In 1920, Halász went to Berlin, 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).
Career
He went to Berlin in 1920 to work as a journalist for Hungarian papers – Keleti and Napkelet.
He traveled back to Paris in 1924 and settled there for the rest of his life, excelling in painting, sculpting, photography, and journalism.
Brassai started reading books of Marcel Proust to learn the French language and became a journalist to support his living while residing with artists at the Montparnasse Quarter.
He found friends in writer Henry Miller, Leon-Paul Fargue and poet Jacques Prevert, who played a major role in shaping his career and life.
Despite having a disliking for photography, Brassai had to use it in his journalistic assignments and generated interest only when he started wandering the deserted streets of Paris at night, viewing its pristine beauty.
The tawdry collection of prostitutes, rag pickers, apaches, madams, transvestites, petty criminals, and street cleaners fascinated him so much that he began capturing the essence of the city through his lens.
Brassai captured a number of his artist friends and popular writers on the canvas, some being Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali, Jean Genet, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Michaux.
His photographs also revealed the lighter side of the city life, including ballet, grand operas, high society and intellectuals, apart from sheer dark side.
He soon grew popular among the Hungarian circle in Paris and continued earning income through commercial photography, especially for the American magazine ‘Harper’s Bazaar’.
During 1943-45, Brassai took up drawing, sculpture and poetry, setting photography aside due to German penetration, and resumed it only in the late 1960s, penning periodicals for ‘Picture Post’, ‘Verve’ and ‘Minotaur’.
He published his first book of drawings ‘Trente dessins’ (Thirty Drawings) in 1946, which included a poem written by French poet Jacques Prevert.
In 1948, his works were displayed in an exclusive show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City. Subsequently, they were exhibited at George Eastman House, Rochester, New York, and Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois.
He took up sculpting figures in stone and bronze after he stopped clicking photographs in 1961, which included designs derived from his collection.
Brassai passed away on July 7, 1984, in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, Alpes-Maritimes, south of France, aged 84. He was laid to rest in Cimetiere du Montparnasse, Paris.
Three Masked Women in Front of. Their Booth, Boulevard Saint-Jacques
1931
Felix Labisse
1948
"Bijou" of Montmartre
1932
Picasso with His Sculpture, "The Speaker"
The Bad Boys
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Membership
He served as one of the founding members of the Rapho agency, launched by Charles Rado, in1933, in Paris.
Personality
He took upon the name Brassai from his birthplace, which literally means ‘someone who belongs to Brasov’, during the period when he used to capture the beauty of nightlife of Paris.
Connections
He married French woman, Gilberte Boyer, in 1948, after which he took up French citizenship in 1949, after being stateless for many years. His wife supported him throughout his photography career, by developing negatives in the darkroom and describing his subjects and personalities.
Brassai
Brassai was the first great chronicler of the urban underbelly This sumptuous Brassai overview gathers outstanding prints of his finest and most popular photographs, drawing on the Estate Brassai in Paris and the collections of leading museums in France and the United States.