Brassai: Paris by Night

This essential reference in the history of urban photography--compiled by Brassaï himself and first published in 1933--has been meticulously reproduced in a new edition, with tinted page edges.

The city of Paris bewitched Hungarian-born Brassaï. Working as a journalist by day in the early 1930s, he roamed the streets of the capital by night, visiting its bistros and sharing moments in the lives of avant-garde artists, prostitutes, peddlers, down-and-outs, and illicit lovers. He captured portraits of a hauntingly dramatic nocturnal world. With these sixty-two poetic photographs, which demonstrate his technical mastery in depicting darkness, he quickly established himself as one of the most original photographers of his generation.

The city’s dramatic night landscape of back alleys, metro stations, and sinewy streets are at turns hauntingly empty or peopled by dancers, revelers, laborers, and thugs. This important work--a stunning portrait of nighttime in the City of Light--portrays the birth of Brassaï as an artist. This book serves as a perpetual source of inspiration for creatives in photography, fashion, and design and the new edition, printed using the latest engraving technology to faithfully reproduce the quality of the original photographs, features a cloth binding with embossing and an inset cover vignette.

Brassaï (1899‒1984), one of the most important and influential photographers of the twentieth century, moved to Paris from Hungary in 1924. He is best known for chronicling the city in the ’30s and for his portraits of artists such as Picasso and Matisse, and writers including Henry Miller. His fifty-year artistic career also encompassed drawing, sculpture, writing, and filmmaking. Paul Morand was a French author of short stories and novellas associated with modernism.