Henri brassai biography wikipedia

He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the World Wars. In the early 21st century, the discovery of more than letters and hundreds of drawings and other items from the period — has provided scholars with material for understanding his later life and career. He grew up speaking Hungarian and Romanian.

When he was three, his family lived in Paris for a year, while his father, a professor of French literature, taught at the Sorbonne. He joined a cavalry regiment of the Austro-Hungarian army, where he served until the end of the First World War. He cited Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as an artistic influence. In , Halasz moved to Paris to live, where he would stay for the rest of his life.

Brassaï photos

To learn the French language, he began teaching himself by reading the works of Marcel Proust. Living among the gathering of young artists in the Montparnasse quarter, he took a job as a journalist. In the late s, he lived in the same hotel as Tihanyi. Miller later played down Brassai's claims of friendship. In he wrote of Brassai: "Fred [Perles] and I used to steer shy of him - he bored us.

He later wrote that he used photography "in order to capture the beauty of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and to capture Paris by night. Add artwork Action History. Wikipedia article References