Brassai

Brassai, born Gyula Halasz in Hungary, was a photographer and writer who spent most of his career in Paris and became renowned for his nighttime photographs of the city. His 1933 book Paris de Nuit (Paris by Night) captured the streets, cafes, brothels and back alleys of the city after dark, documenting a world of prostitutes, ragpickers and revelers that few other photographers had approached. He was also closely tied to the Parisian artistic and literary circle of the 1930s, photographing figures such as Pablo Picasso and Henry Miller, and his graffiti photographs later influenced later generations of street photographers. Brassai's nocturnal Paris remains one of the defining photographic portraits of the city in the interwar period.