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
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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’) -
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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 -
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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’ -
