The new album by the NGO Reporters Without Borders for press freedom will be released on newsstands on November 10, 2022.
Month of the photo in Paris obliges, it is logically a great photographer who is in the spotlight of this new edition, namely, Brassaï!
Undisputed master of night lights and tireless surveyor of Paris, the Franco-Hungarian photographer offers us a pretty iconographic stroll through the Paris of the 1930s and 1950s.
Founded in 1985, Reporters Without Borders works for the freedom, independence and pluralism of journalism everywhere on the planet.
The profits from the sales of the albums will be entirely donated to the association.
Directed by:
Olivier JUSZCZAK
Gyula Halász was born on September 9, 1899 in Brassó, Hungary, and died on July 8, 1984, in Beaulieu-sur-Mer in the Alpes-Maritimes.
He signs his works with the pseudonym Brassaï in homage to his place of birth.
“I became a photographer to capture the night in Paris,” said Brassaï.
Arriving in Paris in 1924, he studied French and became a correspondent for Hungarian and German newspapers, while spending his nights in the Montparnasse district with the American Henry Miller.
From 1929, he took his first photos with the aim of illustrating his articles.
In 1932, he published his first work,
Paris de nuit
, which brought together 62 of his images.
With 12,000 copies sold, it's a success!
And the press praises the gaze of this artist whose nocturnal outdoor photos can take up to 15 minutes of exposure time.
An opening time that he generally calculates in cigarettes smoked…
At ease in social evenings as in popular balls, frequenting the artists of Montparnasse and the scoundrels of the Italy district, he fixes for eternity the feverish Paris of the 1930s.
In 1932, he met the painter Picasso, to whom he remained very close all his life.
The surrealists invited him to participate in the review
Minotaure,
published in Paris from 1933 to 1939.
It was also in the early 1930s that he began to take an interest in the inscriptions or "graffiti" on the walls of Paris.
The street artist C215 comments in the album on the work of this pioneer of street photography.
This work will also be exhibited for the first time in 1956 in
Langage du mur, graffitis parisiens
at the MoMA in New York.
Braissaï also immortalizes the Paris of the working classes, by making portraits when the city wakes up and the "small trades" begin their work in the district of Les Halles.
He took a break from his work as a photographer during the Second World War and then resumed his activity.
Brassaï portraitist of many artists of his time.
Often, they are also his friends, as here, with the poet Jacques Prévert.
From the 1950s, Brassaï collaborated with major international magazines.
The last part of the album is devoted to his work outside the borders of France.
Culture
Slideshow
Freedom of press
Media
Photo
RSF