BRASSA

born Sept. 9, 1899, Brass, Transylvania, Austria-Hungary died July 8, 1984, Eze, near Nice, Fr. original name Gyula Halsz, French Jules Halasz Hungarian-born French poet, draftsman, sculptor, and photographer, known primarily for his dramatic photographs of Paris at night. His pseudonym, Brassa, is derived from his native city. He was trained as an artist and settled in Paris in 1924. There he worked as a sculptor, painter, and journalist and became familiar with other artists, such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Mir, Salvador Dal, and the writer Henry Miller. Although he despised photography at the time, he found it necessary to use a camera in his journalistic assignments and soon came to appreciate the unique aesthetic qualities of photography. Brassa's early photographs concentrated on the nighttime world of Montparnasse, a district of Paris noted at that time as a haunt of artists and criminals. His pictures were published in a photographic book, Paris de nuit (Paris at Night), in 1933, containing photographs such as Bijoux' in Place Pigalle Bar and Streetwalker. It was an immediate success, and his next book, Volupts de Paris (1935; Pleasures of Paris), containing such powerful photographs as Two Apaches, made him internationally famous. When the German army occupied Paris in 1940, Brassa escaped southward to the French Riviera. He returned to Paris, however, when he learned that the negatives he had hidden there were in danger of being ruined by moisture. During the occupation of Paris, open photography in the streets was forbidden, so Brassa resumed drawing and sculpture and began writing poetry. After World War II, his drawings were published in book form as Trente dessins (1946; Thirty Drawings) with a poem by the French poet Jacques Prvert. He resumed his work as a photographer in 1945. In 1947 a number of his photographs of dimly lighted Paris streets were greatly enlarged to serve as the backdrop for Prvert's ballet Le Rendez-vous. Many of Brassa's postwar pictures continue the themes and techniques of his early work. But such photographs as Exotic Garden in Monaco (1946) and White Umbrella on the Riviera (1948) show a new interest in varied subject matter as well as a heightened awareness of form and space. Unlike many documentary photographers, Brassa preferred static subjects to those that are active, as is seen in Holy Week, Seville, a picture in his photographic book Seville en fte (1954). Yet, he imbued the most inanimate subjects, such as graffiti, with a warm sense of human life. The Secret Paris of the 30's was published in 1976. Artists of My Life, a collection of photographic and verbal portraits of well-known artists, art dealers, and friends, was published in 1982.