Brassai - Paris By Night - 2001

The city of Paris bewitched Hungarian-born Brassaï. Working as a journalist by day in the early 1930s, he roamed the streets of the capital by night, visiting its bistros and sharing moments in the lives of avant-garde artists, prostitutes, peddlers, down-and-outs, and illicit lovers. He captured portraits of a hauntingly dramatic nocturnal world. With these sixty-two poetic photographs, which demonstrate his technical mastery in depicting darkness, he quickly established himself as one of the most original photographers of his generation. The city's atmospheric night landscape of back alleys, metro stations, and sinewy streets are at turns eerily empty or peopled by dancers, revelers, laborers, and thugs. This important work-a stunning portrait of nighttime in the City of Light - portrays the birth of Brassaï as an artist.

Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, writing about the first edition from 1933, note that "the printing represents arguably the most luscious gravure ever seen, the blacks being so rich and deep that after handling the book one expects to find sooty deposits all over one's fingers. The gradation of tones is wonderfully subtle, describing an apparently infinite range of black and near-black tones. The layout, with its characteristic full-page bleeds, never more felicitously employed, takes us from image to image, from page to page, and across night-time Paris, with effortless panache. One should think of it as amongst the best produced and influential photobooks ever"

The first edition from 1933 is included in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook Vol. 1 p.134

Condition
Very good condition English language edition of this very important book. Interior fresh and clean. Binding tight. Tears to front of dust jacket and very small wear to edge of dust jacket. Old price sticker on rear of dust jacket. Please examine listing photos carefully.