The world is full of photographers, and it's not unusual to be asked, "Have you heard of this-or-that photographer?" and the answer is, many times, "No." There are lots of great photographers out there, and it's always a wonderful surprise to discover someone whose work you really like, but whose name you've never heard before.
In the quest to get your work out there, living photographers have one great advantage, namely that we're still around to promote ourselves. Build that Website, use paid search advertising, Linkedin and Facebook. Tweet away!
But what of those who've made the trip to the ultimate darkroom? Some have work that that's made it onto gallery walls, or into the history of photography books. But there are a lot of great photographers — some famous and many not — who have passed away, but whose work deserves to be remembered, studied, and showcased.
We started this series as "Dead Photographer of the Moment" but in response to a handful of people who wrote to register a protest that the title is too coarse, we've euphemistically renamed it "Departed Photographer of the Moment." The purpose is still the same: To bring to our readers' attention the life and work of an interesting photographer whose picture-taking days are over. In the coming months, we'll profile the work of photographers of note, both the famous and the not-so-famous, whose work we think merits the attention of all photographers.
We hope you're enjoying these appreciations of these important figures. Comments about our name change or anything else, including suggestions for future installments are always welcome. Just send them to
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Brassai (1899-1984)
by NYI Associate Dean Jerry Rice
Paris, the City of Light, has for centuries now been the lodestar drawing to her all manner of artistic temperaments, creative geniuses, intellectual giants, bons vivants, and boulevardiers of every type and description — the haute monde, the demi-monde, the hoi polloi.
For me, a photographer, it was a sheer delight the first time I visited that magnificent city. Like others I photographed the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the Invalides, the Tuileries, the Opera, the Louvre, the Ile Saint Louis, the Sacre Coeur, the Luxembourg Gardens, and, oh, so much more! And, like every other photographer who has photographed Paris, I firmly believed that I alone had discovered that great city for the first time! Euphoria and delusion, surely, but there I was in Paris with a camera.
Who, before me, had broached the city's ancient gates (les portes), with camera at the ready? Who had dared to record my city? Oh, yes, Nadar (Felix Tournachon), Atget, Man Ray, Berenice Abbott, Lisette Model, Andre Kertesz, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisineau, Eduard Boubat, Philippe Charbonnier, Walker Evans, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, etc., etc., etc.., and, of course, Brassai.
And who was Brassai? He was born in 1899 in Brasso, Transylvania (then in Hungary, now in Romania), and his given name was Gyula Halasz. His father was a Hungarian professor, his mother an Armenian. Brassai was taken by his parents to Paris at a very young age. As he matured he studied painting and literature and eventually began to photograph Paris and used the pseudonym of Brassai, derived from his home town Brasso.
Although he photographed many subjects in Paris, including the street dances and artists' galas, his principal interest lay in the night world of pimps, prostitutes, drunkards, drug addicts, transvestites and hoodlums, — the seamier side of life. Brassai traversed the city, often in the company of fellow Hungarian photographer Andre Kertesz and American author Henry Miller (Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn).
>One might suppose that with such unusual material the photographer would use a relatively concealable camera, small, unobtrusive, and so forth in order not to alert the subjects to the photographer's presence. That was not Brassai's technique. Instead, he used a 2 1/4" X 3 1/4 " folding bellows camera mounted on a tripod and frequently accompanied by a flash unit indoors. His approach was not to conceal either his camera or his intentions. Instead, he had the open cooperation of his subjects, and yet he did not pose them. Outdoors he skillfully used the available light, usually street lamps. Later on in his extensive career he used a Leica.
A close friend of many artists in Paris, Brassai, too, produced paintings, sculpture, and literary works and made an in-depth photographic study of Picasso in 1939. His best known book was "Paris du nuit" published in 1932 and translated into English in 1934 as "Paris at Night". Brassai died in 1984.
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One might suppose that with such unusual material the photographer would use a relatively concealable camera, small, unobtrusive, and so forth in order not to alert the subjects to the photographer's presence. That was not Brassai's technique. Instead, he used a 2 1/4" X 3 1/4 " folding bellows camera mounted on a tripod and frequently accompanied by a flash unit indoors. His approach was not to conceal either his camera or his intentions. Instead, he had the open cooperation of his subjects, and yet he did not pose them. Outdoors he skillfully used the available light, usually street lamps. Later on in his extensive career he used a Leica.
