Brassaï

Photographer, sculptor and writer Gyula Halász, aka Brassaï, was born on September 9 1899 in Brasso (ex-Kingdom of Hungary) and died on July 7 1984 in Paris. In 1924, working as a journalist and living in Montparnasse, at the heart of the artistic Paris, he becomes friends with Henry Miller, Léon-Paul Fargue and Jacques Prévert. He would later write that photography helped him capture the Parisian night, the beauty of streets and gardens, rain or shine. In 1932, he publishes his first collection called Paris de nuit, which is very successful and leads Miller to dub him « the eye of Paris » in one of his essays. Apart from his photographs of the Parisian underworld, Brassaï is also interested in high society, intellectuals, dance and opera. He photographs a great number of his contemporaries, such as Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and some major writers of the time: Jean Genet, Henri Michaux and Jacques Prévert.