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The city of Paris bewitched Brassaï. Working
as a journalist by day, by night he roamed
the streets of the capital and visited its
bistros, sharing moments in the lives of the
prostitutes and peddlers, down-and-outs
and illicit lovers who lived on the margins
of society. Their nocturnal surroundings
fascinated the artist, whose photographs
are as much an exploration of the technical
challenge of portraying darkness as
portraits of a hauntingly dramatic night
world. Paris by Night, first published in
1933, features over sixty of these poetic
images, and has become an acknowledged
classic of urban photography.
Brassaï moved in the same circles as the
Surrealists - he met Picasso in 1932, and
worked on Le Minotaure, the famous
Surrealist review. He retained a very
individual creative vision, however, commenting
: "The surreal effect of my pictures
was nothing more than reality made
fantastic through a particular vision. All I
wanted to express was reality, for nothing is
more surreal." This uniquely modern
perspective has inspired a new generation
of art critics and historians, and the
centenary of Brassaï's birth has been the
catalyst for major retrospective exhibitions
at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Houston
Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery
in Washington, D.C. and the Hayward
Gallery, London.
As part of this tribute, the current long-overdue
reissue of Paris by Night brings one
of the last century's key photographic works
back into print.
