Brassaï Graffiti

Master photographer Brassaï’s seminal volume dedicated to street graffiti is back in print.

Brassaï celebrated the primal forces at play in the act of defacing a wall and the ＂magical＂ power of the symbols inscribed. A fundamentally human gesture, graffiti is a distillation of all aspects of life--from birth through love to death. This beautifully curated reissue includes a comprehensive selection of Brassaï’s photographs of graffiti, facsimile pages from his sketchbooks, extracts from his conversations with Picasso, and several reworked translations of his essays on graffiti. An essential volume in the history of photography, this book is a tribute to Brassaï’s extraordinary prescience and freedom of thought.

Brassaï (1899-1984) is one of the great figures of twentieth-century photography. Born in Brasso, Hungary, he studied at the academies of Budapest and Berlin before moving to Paris in 1924. After embarking on a career in journalism, he soon turned to photography in the early 1930s. This sculptor of images, dubbed the ＂living eye＂ by Henry Miller, captured the essence of the City of Light and revisited the graffiti that adorned its walls. Describing himself as a ＂plunderer of beauty of all kinds,＂ Brassaï exalted the everyday scenes he encountered. Through his camera lens, he fixed his gaze on his era, recording it for posterity and safeguarding it from oblivion. From the 1960s, after contributing to Harper’s Bazaar for more than twenty-five years, the multi-talented artist devoted himself to sculpture and writing. His works, which have been exhibited around the world, form an emblematic oeuvre that will remain forever inscribed in our collective imagination.