Brassai

Brassaï, pseudonym Gyula Halász (1899 - 1984), was a Hungarian photographer known for his work on Paris, the city where he developed his career.

Gyula Halász was born on September 9, 1899 in Brașov (Brassó, in Hungarian) then part of Hungary, now part of Romania. At the age of three his family moved to Paris for a year while his father, a literature professor, taught at the Sorbonne University. As a young man, Gyula Halász studied painting and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest before enlisting in the cavalry regiment of the Austro-Hungarian army until the end of World War I. In 1920 Halász settled in Berlin where he worked as a journalist and studied at the Berlin University of the Arts.

In 1924 he moved to Paris, where he lived for the rest of his life. He began to learn French by reading the work of Marcel Proust and, living among the many artists in the Montparnasse neighborhood, he began working as a journalist. He soon became friends with Henry Miller, Léon-Paul Fargue, and the poet Jacques Prévert.

Gyula Halász's work and his love for the city, whose streets he walked regularly at night, led him to photography. He would later write that photography allowed him to capture the night of Paris and the beauty of the streets and gardens, under the rain and the fog. Using the name of his birthplace, Gyula Halász became known under the pseudonym "Brassaï", which means "from Brașov". Brassaï captured the essence of the city in his photographs, publishing the first photographic book of him in December 1932. His efforts met with great success, being called "The Eye of Paris"; in an essay by his friend Henry Miller. In addition to photos of the seedy side of Paris, he also produced scenes of the city's social life, its intellectuals, its ballet and grand operas. He photographed many of his artist friends, including Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and many of the prominent writers of the day such as Jean Genet and Henri Michaux.

In 1956, his film Tant qu'il aura des bêtes won the award for most original film at the Cannes Film Festival and in 1978 he won the French National Photography Grand Prix.

Considered by many to be one of the great photographers of the 20th century, Gyula Halász died on July 8, 1984 in Èze (Alpes-Maritimes), in the south of France and was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.

In 2000, an exhibition of 450 of his works was organized with the help of his widow, Gilberte, at the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris.

Literary creation

Brassaï also wrote seventeen books and numerous articles, including the novel Histoire de Marie in 1948, which was published with a foreword by Henry Miller. Undoubtedly one of his most interesting works is Conversations with Picasso (1964), an artist he photographed on countless occasions and with whom he was united by a special friendship and sincere mutual admiration.