lity for heightened awareness and interpretation.
Brassaı ̈ often repeated that his ‘‘ambition was
always to see an aspect of everyday life as if disco-
vering it for the first time.’’ While best known as a
photographer, Brassaı ̈was also a writer and accom-
plished in drawing, painting, and sculpture.
Brassaı ̈ was born Gyula Hala ́sz in Brasso ́,
Transylvania, then a part of Hungary. The pseu-
donym means ‘‘a native of Brasso ́.’’ In 1903–1904,
Brassaı ̈’s father, a professor of French literature,
brought his family to live with him in Paris while
he was conducting research at the Sorbonne, and
at a young age, Brassaı ̈developed a love of Paris
that would remain throughout his life. Brassaı ̈
served in the Austro-Hungarian cavalry in World
War I and afterwards briefly attended the Acad-
emy of Fine Arts in Budapest. In December 1920,
after Transylvania became part of Romania under
Soviet influence, Brassaı ̈fled to Berlin and began a
career as a journalist for Hungarian-language
newspapers and magazines. In part to avoid being
drafted into the Romanian Army, Brassaı ̈attended
the Akademishce Hochschule where he cultivated
the image of a rebellious bohemian. In Berlin,
Brassaı ̈ developed a close friendship with Lajos
Tihanyi, a prominent Hungarian painter; met La ́s-
zlo ́ Moholy-Nagy and modern painters Oskar
Kokoschka and Wassily Kandinsky; and read Go-
ethe, whose appreciation of commonplace objects
and events would inspire Brassaı ̈’s emphasis on
seemingly direct depictions of people and places.
With runaway inflation in Germany, Brassaı ̈re-
turned to Brasso ́ in late spring 1922 for what
would be his last visit to his birthplace.
He arrived in Paris in early 1924 and wandered
through the city, being fascinated with the details of
the built environment and the lives of the city’s
inhabitants. Writing for publications in Germany,
France, the Netherlands, Great Britain, and the
United States, Brassaı ̈first began signing his articles
‘‘Gyula Brassaı ̈’’ to separate the opinion and trivial
topics of his journalism from more artistic literary
and visual works for which he planned to use the
family name ‘‘Hala ́sz,’’ but by the 1930s, he began to
use ‘‘Brassaı ̈’’ exclusively.
Initially disparaging photography as illustra-
tion, Brassaı ̈ only began collecting old photo-
graphs and postcards in 1924, and he did not
begin to take his own photographs until the end
of 1929 when he could afford to buy a camera, a
Voigtla ̈nder, and then a Rolleiflex in 1935. With
his own photography, Brassaı ̈began to recognize
the potential of the medium for detailed obser-
vation. Exploring Paris at night, Brassaı ̈focused
his attention and his camera on deserted areas,
buildings, and monuments and on human inter-
actions at all levels of society from the bourge-
oisie to prostitutes, ruffians, and the poor on the
fringes of society. In late 1932, this material was
published asParis after Dark,withwrittentextby
Paul Morand. Offers for exhibitions and maga-
zine assignments followed, and Carmel Snow and
Alexey Brodovitch, editors ofHarper’s Bazaar,
hired Brassaı ̈to begin a more than twenty-year
relationship with the magazine. Working at a
time of great popularity for illustrated magazines,
Brassaı ̈ produced photographs for substantial
weekly publications, Surrealist and post-Surreal-
ist journals, fashion magazines, and detective and
sexually evocative ‘‘magazines legers,’’ which
were important sources of income for many per-
iod photographers and for the promotion of mod-
ern photography.
Not until 1976 did Brassaı ̈publishThe Secret
Paris of the 30s. This series explored a range of licit
and illicit locations of entertainment and pleasure,
ranging from high society to fringe establishments,
such as opium parlors, bordellos, and homosexual
bars. Combining artistic and documentary interest,
though often appearing to be candid journalistic
press photography, Brassaı ̈’s photographs were
made with his subjects’ agreement that they would
be photographed but without knowledge of when.
He conducted research to anticipate action and
bought drinks for and gave payment to some of his
subjects. Brassaı ̈’s interest was not that his images be
true but that they be convincing. He did not invent
but observed, selected, and developed his ideas.
Considering literal translation of an object to be a
betrayal of reality, Brassaı ̈ pursued imaginative
resemblance and representation that was anchored
in lived experience and the objective world.
In 1932, Brassaı ̈was asked by Te ́riade to take
photographs of Pablo Picasso, his work, and his
studio for the first issue ofLe Minotaure. Brassaı ̈
published over 150 images in the first nine issues of
the journal with half of the photographs being por-
traits of artists and images of their work and their
studios. Brassaı ̈worked on portraits of Picasso for
four decades and was much stimulated by their asso-
ciation. Picasso’s etching on one of Brassaı ̈’s nega-
tives inspired hisTransmutationsseries.Conversations
avec Picassogrew from the notes Brassaı ̈began to
collect after their first meetings, but not until 1960
and with Picasso’s suggestion did these materials
become a book. Included are discussions of Picasso’s
working habits, philosophies, friends and wives, as
well as discussion of Brassaı ̈’s own work habits and
interests. Picasso much appreciated the opportunity
through Brassaı ̈to see his own work with ‘‘new eyes.’’BRASSAI ̈