Exhibition dates: 28th March – 4th October, 2026

Curators: Curated by Anna Tellgren, Moderna Museet, in collaboration with Philippe Ribeyrolles, Estate Brassaï Succession

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
L’allumeur de becs de gaz, rue Emile Richard/Lamplighter, Rue Émile-Richard
c. 1931
Vintage silver gelatin print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

 

Brassaï’s chimerical – an idea that seems real or possible but is actually an impossible illusion – shimmering, urban light creations are photographs, sometimes staged, from the imagination and nocturnal life of the photographer.

As I have written elsewhere, “It takes a great eye and a great mind, and the liberation of that mind, to be able to transform the mundane, the everyday, the vernacular – into art. Brassaï’s folklore, his mythology of life, suggests that the life of others (those living on the edge) is as valuable and essential to the formation of culture as any other part of existence.”

Brassaï saw something clearly, so that we might see it now.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Moderna Museet for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“Brassaï’s photographs invite us to decipher signs – the traces of events and human presence – and to search for the answer to the city’s many mysteries.”

Anna Tellgren, Curator

 

 

 

Brassaï | Introduction by Anna Tellgren with Martina Hoogland Ivanow

In this video, you meet curator Anna Tellgren and artist Martina Hoogland Ivanow, who introduce the exhibition “Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris” at Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Brassaï is one of the most famous photographers in the history of photography. In the early 1930s, he set out with his camera on long nocturnal walks through Paris. Revolving around this treasure of images, the exhibition “Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris” includes over 160 black-and-white photographs.

Text from the YouTube website

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing at right in the bottom image, Brassaï’s Open Gutter (c. 1931/1956, below)

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Open Gutter
c. 1931/1956
Gelatin silver print

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing at left, Brassaï’s Night View Old Paris from Notre Dame – “the Devil” Chimaera (1933); at top right, Morris Column (1933, below); and at bottom right, Urinal on Boulevard Auguste-Blanqui (c. 1930-32)

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Morris Column
1933
Gelatin silver print

 

 

About the exhibition

Brassaï (1899-1984) is the pseudonym of Gyula Halász, who grew up in Brassó in Transylvania, then Hungary. After studying in Budapest and Berlin, he moved to Paris at the age of twenty-five.

There are three themes in Brassaï’s photographic production and in the exhibition “Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris”: the city of Paris with its inhabitants and environments, the portraits of artists and their works, and the city’s graffiti.

Nocturnal Environments and People

When Brassaï moved to Paris in 1924, he first worked as a journalist. His major breakthrough as a photographer came with the book “Paris de nuit” (Paris by Night), published in 1933. Many of his famous motifs can be found here – Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower, bars and dance halls, artists and workers, policemen and petty thieves.

The black-and-white photographs with motifs in soft tones were the result of his long nocturnal walks through Paris – his camera lens captures environments and people in the light of street lamps and the light falling from the buildings of the city.

Bars, Dance Halls and Brothels

After the success of “Paris de nuit”, Brassaï received requests to publish the material that includes his more intimate photographs of Paris by night – the bars, dance halls, gay clubs and brothels. But at that time, in post-war Paris, censorship had become stricter and publication had to wait.

It was not until about forty years later, in 1976, that the book “Le Paris secret des années 30” (The Secret Paris of the 30’s) was published, based on Brassaï’s large collection of photographs.

Night Photographs, Graffiti, and Life in Paris

The exhibition “Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris” includes more than 160 vintage gelatine silver prints made by the photographer himself.

The first room of the exhibition features Brassaï’s legendary night photographs of Paris, its inhabitants and environments. The middle room shows his extensive documentation of the city’s graffiti, and the last room of the exhibition presents more of his images of life in Paris.

Brassaï’s film from the mid-1950s, “Tant qu’il y aura des bêtes” (As Long as There Are Animals), which was awarded as the most innovative short film at at the Cannes Film Festival in 1956, is also included in the exhibition.

Biography Gyula Halász

Gyula Halász (1899-1984) grew up in Brassó in Transylvania, then Hungary.

After studying art in Budapest and Berlin, he moved to Paris in 1924 and took the name Brassaï, which means “from Brassó”. He was versatile and devoted himself to drawing, painting, sculpture and photography in parallel. Literature was another great interest.

Brassaï moved in Parisian artist circles and his contact with the surrealists, as well as his friendship with Pablo Picasso, sharpened his eye for the unexpected and overlooked. His major breakthrough as a photographer came with the book “Paris de nuit” (“Paris by Night”), published in 1933.

On his wanderings in Paris, Brassaï also discovered street graffiti, which he documented in an extensive series of photographs until the 1950s. At the same time, he also made reporting trips for the magazine “Harper’s Bazaar” to Brazil, Greece and Sweden, among other places.

Brassaï died in 1984, after receiving several awards and participating in exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States during his final years.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing at centre second left, Brassaï’s Bal des Quatre Saisons, rue de Lappe (c. 1932, below)

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Bal des Quatre Saisons, rue de Lappe
c. 1932
Gelatin silver print

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Couple d’amoureux dans un petit café, quartier Italie
c. 1932
Gelatin silver print

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing from left to right, top to bottom, Brassaï’s A Couple at the Magic-City Dance Hall, Rue Cognacq-Jay (c. 1931-32); A Two-in-One Suit, the Magic-City Dance Hall (1931, below); Magic-City Dance Hall, Rue de l’Universite (1931); The Magic-City Dance Hall, Rue Cognacq-Jay (c. 1931-32)

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
A Two-in-One Suit, the Magic-City Dance Hall
1931
Gelatin silver print

 

 

Brassaï is one of the most famous photographers in the history of photography. In the early 1930s, he set out with his camera on long nocturnal walks through Paris. Revolving around this treasure of images, the exhibition at Moderna Museet includes over 160 black-and-white photographs and is the first major presentation of Brassaï in Sweden.

Brassaï (1899-1984) is a pseudonym for Gyula Halász, who grew up in Brassó in Transylvania, then Hungary. After studying in Budapest and Berlin, he moved to Paris at the age of twenty-five. There he became part of the Humanist Photography that emerged during the interwar period. The street and the life that unfolded on the sidewalks and cafes became typical motifs for the genre.

Paris, Portraits and Graffiti

The exhibition “Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris” includes more than 160 vinted gelatin silver prints, made by the photographer himself.

The audience encounters three central themes in Brassaï’s photographic production: the city of Paris with its inhabitants and environments, the portraits of artists and their works, as well as his extensive documentation of the city’s graffiti.

The title of the exhibition alludes to how Brassaï opens up a hidden world with the help of his camera, his curiosity and his artistic practice, curator Anna Tellgren says.

His photographs invite us to decipher signs – the traces of events and human presence – and to search for the answer to the city’s many mysteries. Here, the extensive series of photographs of graffiti becomes an important part of understanding what Brassaï saw and how he moved in the city. In the exhibition, we follow in his footsteps.

In the exhibition, Brassaï’s short film “Tant qu’il y aura des bêtes” (As long as there are animals) from the mid-1950s is also shown. At the Cannes Film Festival in 1956 it was named the most innovative short film.

The Environments and People of the Night

Brassaï’s major breakthrough as a photographer came with the book “Paris de nuit” (“Paris by Night”), published in 1933. The black-and-white photographs with motifs in soft tones were the result of his long nocturnal walks through Paris – a city in transition between history and modernity. His camera lens captures environments and people in the light of street lamps and the light falling from the city’s most characteristic buildings.

After the success of “Paris de nuit”, Brassaï received requests to publish the material that includes his more intimate photographs of Paris by night – the bars, dance halls, gay clubs and brothels. But at that time, in post-war Paris, censorship had become stricter and publication had to wait.

It was not until about forty years later, in 1976, that the book “Le Paris secret des années 30” (The Secret Paris of the 30’s, 1976) was published, based on Brassaï’s large collection of photographs. In the book, he himself wrote and told the stories behind the images and about the personalities he had met and portrayed.

Press release from Moderna Museet

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing from left to right, Brassaï’s Fairgrounds, Place d’Italie (c. 1931); “No One Under 18 Allowed”, at the Fairgrounds (1932-33); Three Women Masked for the Parade (1931, below); The Hands of the Fortune Teller (1933, below)

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Three Women Masked for the Parade
1931
Vintage gelatin silver print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Les mains de la cartomancienne/The Hands of the Fortune Teller
1933
Vintage silver gelatin print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing from left to right, Brassaï’s Hotel du lion d’Or in the Chaconne Neighbourhood (c. 1934); Marlene, Paris (1937, below); Kiss on a Swing at a Street Fair (c. 1935-37)

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Marlene, Paris
1937
Vintage silver gelatin print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

 

Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris

Text by curator Anna Tellgren

At the age of twenty-five, the Hungarian-born Gyula Halász, better known as Brassaï, moved to Paris, the city that became his home and which came to shape his entire life and oeuvre. Brassaï was multifaceted, using a variety of media, including drawing, sculpture, painting and photography. Literature was another of his major interests and writing was part of his practice throughout his career.

In different contexts, Brassaï has elaborated on why he started photographing, on his longing to preserve everything he experienced and was fascinated by as a flâneur through Paris. Photography became the form of expression that best corresponded to what he wanted to achieve. A shimmer lies over the memories from the first years in the French capital, from the bars in the neighbourhoods around Montparnasse and Montmartre where he hung out with his friends until the early hours of the morning. Through the images, we gain access to the famous monuments, bridges, the small squares, markets, and fairgrounds – magically illuminated by the glow of gas lanterns. But we see them captured from another perspective, from other angles, presenting an alternative Paris, beyond the tourist hotspots. The exhibition focuses on the intense period in the 1930s when Brassaï became an innovator of nocturnal photography and one of the foremost portraitists of the city and life in Paris. The title of the exhibition, “The Secret Signs of Paris”, alludes to how the photographer opened the door to a hidden world using his camera, his curiosity, and his artistic practice [1]. His photographs challenge us to interpret signs – the traces of events and human presence – and to look for the answer to the many mysteries of the city. Here, the comprehensive series of photographs of graffiti becomes an important element in understanding what Brassaï saw and how he moved through the city. The exhibition allows us to follow in his footsteps.

Gyula Halász was born in 1899 in Brassó, Transylvania, which was part of Hungary at the time [2]. That was also where he grew up, with the exception of when his father, a professor of French, stayed in Paris with his family from 1903 to 1904 [3]. In the lead-up to the First World War, the family fled to Budapest. After serving a year in the Austro-Hungarian cavalry, Gyula Halász started studying at the art academy in Budapest in 1918. He moved to Berlin in 1920, where he continued studying art. In February 1924 he arrived in Paris, where he stayed for the rest of his life, never returning to his home country.

In the early years in Paris, he supported himself by writing articles for Hungarian and German magazines, illustrated with his photographs and those of other photographers. He assumed the pseudonym Brassaï, which means “from Brassó”, and continued to publish and work under this artist name. He moved in artist circles, and contacts in the Hungarian diaspora led to different kinds of commissions. Photographer André Kertész and Charles Rado were among his compatriots. The latter started the photo agency Rapho, which represented Brassaï both in Paris and New York. Around 1930 he began photographing more seriously, using a folding camera of the brand Voigtländer Bergheil with glass negatives (6.5 x 9 cm), switching to a Rolleiflex in the mid-1930s with medium-format (6 x 6 cm) negatives. His career as aphotographer took off fast and photography became his main source of income. He took all kinds of jobs, even photographing hairstyles for the famous hairdresser Monsieur Antoine and hiring two assistants to keep up [4]. In the early years, Brassaï moved around between small hotels in Montparnasse, where he even installed a darkroom to develop his own photographs, which he continued doing throughout his career.

Brassaï’s photographic production encompasses three main themes, of which the city of Paris is the most famous; but his portraits of artists and their work, as well as his interest in graffiti are also well-known. One of the many writers and artists that Brassaï met and socialised with over the years was Henry Miller, who lived in Paris from 1930 to 1939, becoming a friend and champion of Brassaï’s photography in several contexts [5]. Another major influence was Pablo Picasso. They were introduced to each other in 1932 by the publisher Tériade, ahead of a commission for the Surrealist magazine Minotaure, leading to a lifelong friendship. Brassaï continued to photograph Picasso’s sculptures and published the book “Conversations avec Picasso” (Conversations with Picasso) in 1964, which presents personal and everyday images of one of modern art’s most celebrated artists [6]. Other artists that he portrayed in text and image include Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Germaine Richier, and Jacques Villon – later collecting the portraits in a book about the artists in his life [7].

Brassaï’s major breakthrough as photographer came with the book “Paris de nuit” (Paris by night) which was published by Arts et Métiers graphiques in 1933, with a text by the writer and diplomat Paul Morand. The book contains sixty-four carefully selected photographs published in a spiral-bound soft-cover book (25 x 19.3 cm). The photographs are printed as full-page bleeds on matt, black, relatively thick paper. The title on the cover is written with red dots to resemble the city’s many neon lights. The book includes many of the famous motifs – the dark cobblestone streets, the narrow alleyways, the prostitutes, Notre-Dame, the metro, the Eiffel Tower, and the cats – all rendered in dark tones, only illuminated by the light emanating from the many characteristic buildings around Paris. The production of the book is a complex story, with Brassaï collaborating closely with the designer and publisher Charles Peignot and the journalist Jean Bernier, who wrote all the captions [8]. The book was part of a tradition from the late nineteenth century, in which established writers, and later filmmakers, were fascinated by the underworld of Paris, describing it from the perspective of a flâneur. Other popular publications at the time were the many magazines reporting on crime and publishing detective stories illustrated with images by Brassaï and other photographers who specialised in these nocturnal adventures.

After the success of “Paris de nuit”, Brassaï started a new collaboration around his more intimate photographs of Paris by night – the bars, dance establishments, the homosexual clubs, bordellos [9]. Despite the interest it generated, he decided to pursue other projects instead. After the war, the atmosphere had shifted and stricter censorship than in the 1930s was put into place, making it simply too difficult to publish these types of images openly. It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that Brassaï got in touch with the publisher Claude Gallimard, suggesting a number of book projects based on the vast material from Paris. This led to the book “Le Paris secret des années 30” (1976) for which Brassaï himself developed the design idea and was closely involved in the entire process [10]. With the distance of forty years, he told the story behind the images and whom we encounter. We learn of Grand Albert and his gang, La Môme Bijou, Kiki de Montparnasse, of the atmosphere at Le Monocle and Chez Suzy. But, as it turns out, we weren’t told everything – it was later revealed that Brassaï’s assistant Gabriel Kiss played the role of customer in the series from Chez Suzy, but the prostitutes were really working there. Brassaï staged a sequence of events at the brothel, which was probably necessary to fulfil the discretion guaranteed to customers and to obtain permission to enter as a photographer. The photographs included in the book were all taken between 1929 and 1934, and it’s as if Brassaï here achieved his photographic zenith and is one with the events, people, and surroundings he lived in and documented. The book has become one of the most important sources with regards to his practice as a photographer and is a classic within the history of photobooks.

At the time of Brassaï’s breakthrough as a photographer, the medium was in an intense phase of development, which was influenced by the breakthrough of the small-format camera and the major entry that photography made into the illustrated press [11]. News from all corners of the world was reported in the form of large photo reportages. There was a high demand for photographs and a market emerged in which different types of photo agencies and photo editors handled the assignments and managed the contacts. Examples of these popular magazines include the French Vu, and the English Picture Post, American Life and Look and in Sweden, from 1938 onwards, the illustrated magazine Se. While press photography was professionalised, many of the avant-garde movements, like Futurism, Bauhaus, Russian Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism, were also interested in photography. Paris was a hub and had been the epicentre of new ideas since the discovery and establishment of photography from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. This is where many of the most famous photographers came to live and work, including Brassaï and his colleagues Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, and Sabine Weiss. They were all representatives of the so-called humanist photography, a movement that arose in the interbellum years in parallel with technological, artistic, and commercial progress [12]. The streets and the life that unfolded on their sidewalks and in the cafés, became symbols in themselves for this special visual poetry, which enticed the photographers, like the writers and artists, to go on long, lonely rambles through the city.

On his recurring walks through Paris, Brassaï discovered street graffiti [13]. Throughout his entire oeuvre from the early 1930s onwards, these signs from walls are present. His work on the graffiti images continued until the late 1950s and was collected in a book by the photographer in 1960, where he sorted them into nine different themes [14]. The collection included the well-known “Le Roi Soleil” (The sun king) and other images of primitive masks, faces, and animals, as well as expressions of magic, love, and death. Brassaï wrote about his extensive series of graffiti photographs in several articles, interpreting these signs on the city walls as a kind of original writing, reading mythological figures into the motifs – demons, heroes, and gods [15]. One could define his collection of graffiti as a kind of archive of human expressivity and creativity. Later he wrote specifically about graffiti in Paris and reflected on his interest in this art form with neither name nor status [16].

In connection with his interest in graffiti, Brassaï collaborated with and moved in Surrealist circles for some years [17]. His first commission was to photograph Picasso’s sculptures for the debut issue of Minotaure in 1933 [18]. Thereafter his article on graffiti was published in the double number 3-4 and in the same number he collaborated with Salvador Dalí on an article about unintended sculptures, as well as one about modern architecture, in which his close-ups of the famous Art Nouveau Paris metro entrances were included [19]. He had many friends in the group and also shared Surrealism’s interest in the rediscovered French photographer Eugène Atget, who had documented the old Paris during the decade following the turn of the twentieth century. Later, Brassaï came to oppose the view of his photographs as “Surrealist” and unreal, claiming that everything he documented was real – which did not, however, hinder him from participating in Minotaure or André Breton’s books [20]. In this period he also created a series of nude studies, whose forms made their way into his sculptures and the series “Transmutations” (1934), a kind of engravings executed on his already exposed photographic glass plates, clearly influenced by his association with the Surrealist movement.

In the war years, Brassaï stayed in Paris, since he didn’t want to leave his photographic archive of negatives in the apartment on rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques, where he had moved in 1935 and that he kept for the rest of his life. But he refused to have his photographs published during the war or to work for the German occupying forces and spent his time writing and drawing instead. After the war, he started photographing again and his photographs were among other things shown as enormous enlargements as part of the set design in several theatre productions. This was when he met Gilberte Boyer. They married in 1948 and she would accompany her husband on trips and work assignments. One of his most important employers at the time was Carmel Snow, the legendary editor of the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar in New York [21]. They had met in 1937 and collaborated for over twenty-five years. Initially he took portraits of artists in their studios for the magazine, but later he also engaged in fashion photography – from balls, exclusive dinner parties, and Parisian high society. In the 1950s he started producing photographic travel reportages for Harper’s Bazaar, travelling to Brazil, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Spain, and Sweden.

When the borders reopened after the Second World War, many young photographers went out into the world and established themselves for shorter or longer periods in the French capital to learn and experience. One of this next generation of photographers was the American photographer Louis Stettner, who made the acquaintance of Brassaï when he settled in Paris [22]. Stettner’s inner circle included the Frenchman Édouard Boubat and the Swedish photographers Rune Hassner and Tore Johnson [23]. They were inspired by and worked in the tradition of the humanist photographers. Rune Hassner was based in Paris from 1949 to 1957; he took on reportage commissions from various magazines, as well as working as a fashion photographer. Through the years he wrote a large number of articles for Swedish photo magazines, in which he introduced European photography and its practitioners to Swedish readers [24]. Brassaï was one of the people he met and interviewed, describing him as one of the most innovative photographers of our time and a well-known personality in French cultural circles [25]. The article is one of several published to highlight Brassaï’s visit to Stockholm and Vålådalen in December 1953.

In the 1950s, Brassaï became the object of several retrospective exhibitions and new book projects. Early on, he had participated in a number of group exhibitions of contemporary photography at galleries in Paris and already in 1937 six photographs by him were included in the exhibition “Photography 1839-1937” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Later, in 1956, MoMA presented the celebrated exhibition “Language of the Wall: Parisian Graffiti Photographed by Brassaï”, which was followed by a retrospective in 1968. The exhibition led to him being rediscovered by American photo historians, curators, and gallerists, which resulted in further exhibitions and inclusion in the collections of many of the major art institutions in the US, as well as the many important museums and collections in France. He stopped photographing in the 1970s, stating that he preferred to travel in his own universe of photographs and make them better known [26]. In the last ten years of his life, he received several prizes and distinctions, such as the first Grand Prix National de la Photographie in 1978. Brassaï died in 1984 in Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the French Riviera. His spirit hovers over all of us who love Paris and return again and again to visit our own favourite places – and over new generations of young people who travel there for several months or years to find themselves and the soul of the city.

Anna Tellgren

 

Notes

1/ The title is inspired by the book Paris’ hemliga tecken, Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand, 1952, with texts by Göran Schildt and photographs by Tore Johnson. The book is one of many slightly more poetic travelogues from Paris that came about as a collaboration between a writer or poet and a photographer.

2/ For a detailed biography see Giberte Brassaï, “Biographie”, in Alain Sayag and Annick Lionel-Marie, Brassaï, Paris: Centre Pompidou and Éditions du Seuil, 2000, pp. 303-305. See also, Stuart Alexander, “Chronology”, Brassaï, ed. Peter Galassi, Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2018, pp. 338-343.

3/ Brassaï’s father, whose name was also Gyula Halász, was professor of French literature at the local university. His mother’s name was Matilde Verzár, and he had two younger brothers, Kálmán Halász (1900-1978) and Endre “Bandi” Halász (1913-1944). Brassaï wrote to his parents regularly – these letters were published in Hungarian in 1980 and later in translation. They are the main source of information when it comes to his early life and career, see Brassaï, Letters to My Parents, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1997.

4/ For an in-depth analysis and interpretation of all the different steps in Brassaï’s career, see Peter Galassi, “Brassaï: Photographer”, Brassaï, ed. Peter Galassi, Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2018, pp. 10-71.

5/ Henry Miller wrote an essay about Brassaï, “The Eye of Paris”, c. 1932, which was published in Henry Miller, Max and the White Phagocytes, Paris: Obelisk Press, 1938. The essay was also published in the photobook Brassaï, Paris: Édition Neuf, 1952, edited by Robert Delpire and Pierre Faucheux.

6/ The book was illustrated with 53 photographs by the photographer, Brassaï, Conversations avec Picasso, Paris: Gallimard, 1964.

7/ Brassaï, Les artistes de ma vie , Paris: Éditions Denoël, 1982.

8/ See also Sylvie Aubenas and Quentin Bajac, “From Paris After Dark to the Secret Paris of the 1930s”, Brassaï Paris Nocturne, London: Thames & Hudson, 2013, pp. 11-33. The book was printed in an edition of 12,000 starting at the end of 1932 and into early 1933, which is why both years of publication occur in bibliographies.

9/ It resulted in the book Volupté de Paris, Paris: Paris-Publications, 1934, published in a small edition by Victor Vidal, who worked with erotic literature. Brassaï was very critical of how the content was changed without consulting him and he never included it in his own bibliography. When it came to the photographs in Paris de nuit, the publisher never returned the negatives to the photographer and they were first found in 1984 in the archives of the publishing house Flammarion, which had bought up Arts et Métiers graphiques, see Kim Sichel, Brassaï: Paris le jour, Paris la nuit, Paris: Musée Carnavalet, 1988.

10/ Brassaï, Le Paris secret des années 30, Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1976. In English translation by Richard Miller, The Secret Paris of the ’30s, London: Thames & Hudson, 1976.

11/ See Stuart Alexander, “Brassaï and the Illustrated Press”, Brassaï, ed. Peter Galassi, Madrid: Fundación Mapfre, 2018, pp. 72-87.

12/ On humanist photography see Marie de Thézy, La photographie humaniste 1930-1960, Histoire d’un movement, Paris: Contrejour, 1992.

13/ See also Karolina Lewandowska, Graffiti Brassaï. Le langage du mur, Paris: Édition du Centre Pompidou and Édition Xavier Barral, 2016.

14/ Brassaï Graffiti. Zwei Gespräche mit Picasso, Stuttgart: Chr. Belser Verlag, 1961. Graffiti de Brassaï, Paris: Les éditions du temps, 1960. See also the later expanded edition in English Brassaï Graffiti, Paris: Flammarion, 2002.

15/ Brassaï, “Du mur des cavernes au mur d’usine”, Minotaure, no. 3-4, 1933, pp. 6-7.

16/ “Graffiti parisiens”, XXe siècle (Paris), no. 10, 1958, pp. 21-24.

17/ See further La Subversion des images: Surréalisme, photographie, film, eds. Quentin Bajac and Clément Chéroux, Paris: Édition du Centre Pompidou, 2009.

18/ André Breton, “Picasso dans son element”, Minotaure, no. 1, 1933, pp. 8-29.

19/ Salvador Dalí and Brassaï, “Sculptures involontaires”, Minotaure, no. 3-4, 1933, p. 68; Salvador Dalí, “De la beauté terrifiante et comestible, de l’architecture modern’ style”, Minotaure, no. 3-4, 1933, pp. 69-76.

20/ Sylvie Aubenas, “Brassaï and Paris by Night”, Brassaï Paris Nocturne, London: Thames & Hudson, 2013, pp. 110-113. Three night photographs by Brassaï are included in André Breton, L’Amour fou, Paris: Gallimard, 1937.

21/ Together with the Russian art director Alexey Brodovitch, Carmel Snow made the fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar into one of the more innovative magazines in the 1940s and ’50s, both in terms of form and content. See also Gabriel Bauret, Alexey Brodovitch, Paris: Éditions Assouline, 1998.

22/ Brassaï later wrote a foreword dated 1983, published in the book by Louis Stettner, Early Joys. Photographs from 1947-1972, New York: Janet Iffland, 1987, pp. 7-9.

23/ For more information on the young Swedish photographers in Paris, see Anna Tellgren, Tio fotografer. Självsyn och bildsyn. Svensk fotografi under 1950-talet i ett internationellt perspektiv (Ten Photographers. Self-perception and Pictorial Perception. Swedish Photography in the 1950s in an International Perspective), diss., Linköping Studies in Arts and Science no. 151, Stockholm: Informationsförlaget, 1997, pp. 151-229.

24/ See for example Rune Hassner, “Fotobohemer, skickliga yrkesmän och ‘konstfotografer'”, Svensk Fotografisk Tidskrift, no. 7, 1949, pp. 139-142. For a compilation see also Rune Hassner, Bilder & Ord. Bibliografi, filmografi, utställningsförteckning med mera, eds. Rune Hassner and Birgitta Forsell, Visuellt. Konst- och bildvetenskapliga institutionens skriftserie no. 7, Gothenburg: Gothenburg University, 2002. In 1988 Rune Hassner (1928-2003) became the first director of the Hasselblad Centre (part of the Hasselblad Foundation in Gothenburg) – a position that he held until his retirement in 1994.

25/ Rune Hassner, “Brassaï”, Nordisk Tidskrift för Fotografi, no. 1, 1954, pp. 13-15.

26/ From an interview with Brassaï in 1974 in Paul Hill and Thomas Cooper, “Brassaï”, Dialogue with Photography, Manchester: Cornerhouse Publication, 1979/1992, pp. 38-42.

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing Brassaï’s Graffiti – Croix de Lorraine (Series II) (c. 1945)

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing from left to right, top to bottom, Brassaï’s Graffiti from series III The Birth of Mankind c. 1932/1956; Graffiti from series III The Birth of Mankind c. 1932/1956; Graffiti from series VII Death c. 1932/1956; Graffiti from series VIII Magic c. 1932/1956

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, March – October, 2026 showing Brassaï’s Graffiti de la série IX “Images primitives”/Graffiti from Series IX “Primitive Images” (c. 1932-1956)

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Graffiti de la série IX “Images primitives”/Graffiti from Series IX “Primitive Images”
c. 1932-1956
Vintage silver gelatin print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

 

Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris

Hungarian-born Gyula Halász, better known as Brassaï, was only twenty-five when he moved to Paris, the city that became his home and shaped the rest of his life and work. His walks through the city awakened a longing to preserve all the fascinating things he saw and experienced, not least the people and milieus that emerged after nightfall. The exhibition focuses on the intense period in the 1930s when Brassaï became an innovator of nocturnal photography and one of the foremost portraitists of Paris.

Brassaï was born in 1899 in Brassó, Transylvania, and studied art in Budapest and Berlin. Versatile in his practice, he worked across drawing, painting, sculpture and photography. Literature was another major interest, and writing remained important to him throughout his career. After arriving in Paris in 1924, he initially worked as a journalist. His breakthrough as photographer came with the 1933 book Paris de nuit. It features many of the city’s famous motifs, evocatively illuminated by the glow of gas streetlights – Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower, bars and dancehalls, performers and workers, policemen and thieves.

He moved in artist circles and his interaction with the Surrealists, as well as his friendship with Pablo Picasso, sharpened his awareness of the unexpected and overlooked. On his rambles through the city, Brassaï also discovered street graffiti and he continued to document these signs, symbols and traces of life in a comprehensive series of photographs until the 1950s. He compared them to children’s drawings and cave paintings, but also saw similarities with contemporary art. In the final years before his death in 1984, Brassaï received major recognition, including numerous awards and exhibitions around Europe and the USA.

The title of the exhibition, The Secret Signs of Paris, alludes to how the photographer revealed a hidden world through his camera. His photographs
become clues to interpreting the city’s poetry. In the exhibition, we follow Brassaï through all hours of the day, from evening to early morning, during the day in the streets and squares of Paris, and back to the night’s shadowy activities.

Technique and Practice

Around 1930, Brassaï started photographing in earnest. He used a Voigtländer Bergheil folding camera with a glass negative (6.5 x 9cm), and, from the mid-1930s onwards, a Rolleiflex with medium-format negatives (6 x 6cm). In the early years he installed a darkroom in the hotel he was staying at, in which he developed his own photographs. In 1935, he bought an apartment on rue du Faubourg Saint-Jacques in Montparnasse, which was both his home and his studio, including a darkroom and his photographic archive. Throughout his career he continued to develop his own photographs. Initially the prints were
relatively small, from c. 5 x 5cm to c. 20 x 30cm, on different types of photo papers. From the 1950s onwards, Brassaï worked on larger prints, up to 40 x 50cm, on glossy paper in editions of c. 30, adapted to the American market.

All the photographs by Brassaï in the exhibition belong to Estate Brassaï
Succession, Paris, unless stated otherwise. They are vintage gelatine silver prints, produced by the photographer himself. © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

Paris by Night

Paris has long been perceived as the city above all others for lovers and romantic encounters. Many of Brassaï’s nocturnal photographs show couples entwined on benches, in parks and in dark allies. The flip-side of this was the widespread prostitution, that had women offering their services to passing men in the alleyways and hotels around town. Brassaï often photographed the women who worked the streets around the old fresh food market in central Paris, Les Halles, which was demolished in 1971. His images speak the tough lives of the prostitutes, but also the strong sense of community among them and the invisible safety net that it provided. In recent years, his photographs of prostitutes and other marginalised people have been criticised for aestheticising vulnerable lives and reinforcing the position of power that the photographer – and thus also the viewer – occupies. Brassaï himself saw his nocturnal photographs as a way of preserving the old, mythical Paris that writers and artists have depicted for centuries.

Brassaï and Swedish Photographers

When the borders re-opened after the Second World War, a great number of young photographers went abroad. Several of them established themselves in Paris to learn, work, and experience the city – some briefly, others for longer periods of time. Among them were the Swedes Rune Hassner and Tore Johnson. Hassner started his career as a fashion and documentary photographer, but he also wrote articles for Swedish photography magazines, in which he introduced
European photography to his colleagues and photo enthusiasts back home in Sweden. One of the people he met and interviewed was Brassaï, who in turn was producing travel reportages for Harper’s Bazaar, visiting places such as Brazil and Greece – as well as Stockholm and Vålådalen, in December 1953. During this visit, he had his portrait taken by Hans Hammarskiöld, who, together with Hassner and Johnson, belonged to the circle of Swedish photographers who debuted in the early 1950s, and later formed the influential group Tio fotografer (Ten Photographers).

Les Bals Musette

In the 1976 book Le Paris secret des années 30 (The Secret Paris of the ’30s) Brassaï recounts about the dance halls that were popular at the time, the so-called Bals musette, which were often located on the outskirts of Paris. Young working-class women and men gathered there to socialise and dance to small orchestras of brass instruments, drums, and accordions. The bal musette scene had its own fashion, music, codes, and often even interiors, featuring fixed benches upholstered in red imitation leather, glass lights, and multicoloured paper garlands hanging from the ceiling. It radiated poetry, gaiety, and dreams, but also came with risks. This was where pimps found young girls to exploit, and knife fights between rival gangs were not uncommon. Several of these establishments were on the rue de Lappe in the 11th arrondissement. With time they were bought up and remade into a kind of scenography for tourists looking for the “real Paris”, seeking out the city’s underworld.

The Balls

At this time, several large-scale public balls were organised, that would spread across Parisian streets and squares. At the ball for medical students that was held every autumn after their final exams the participants appeared almost naked, covered in nothing but gold glitter. One of the more famous balls was Le Bal des Quat’z’Arts, the art students’ spring ball. Although the theme changed from year to year, for example from Egyptian to Gallic, not many people actually wore a costume. Instead the event was known for its playful atmosphere. The festivities kicked off in the art school courtyard, continuing into the rue Bonaparte and the surrounding quarters, ending in a morning dip in the fountain at the Place de la Concorde. One of the balls that Brassaï attended and documented was Magic-City, the legendary masquerade ball organised for a few years around 1930 for members of the queer community. Here he met all of them who came to dance, party and be seen. Brassaï’s photographs today stand as important testimonies to an early queer nightlife in Paris.

Queer lives

In the 1930s, there were a few meeting places for the city’s queer communities in the area around Montparnasse in Paris. One of the first lesbian bars was Le Monocle on boulevard Edgar-Quinet, or “the temple of Sapphic love”, as Brassaï put it. He was introduced to the scene by “La grosse Claude”, one of the regulars. Fat Claude’s real name was Violette Morris and she was a renowned athlete, who during the Second World War, was recruited as a Nazi spy. She was killed in 1944 by activists in the French Resistance Movement. Brassaï’s photographs of the queer scene were early, unusually candid depictions of what was then a marginalised and often disregarded group. In his writings, he often reiterated how he was drawn to the people who lived and worked at night, describing his method of being introduced and accepted into the scenes that he moved in. He never photographed in secret. Even so, he was more than once threatened and had his plates stolen by those who did not want to risk being recognised and exposed.

Graffiti

Brassaï discovered the city’s graffiti on his recurring rambles through Paris. From the early 1930s until the end of the 1950s he worked on documenting these signs on walls and facades. Over the years he refined his method, carrying a notepad around with him in which he sketched the figures and noted their locations so he could revisit them. Sometimes he returned to photograph them in better light or he would find them several years later to examine how they had developed. In this way he assembled a kind of visual archive of human expression and creativity. Brassaï collated the images in the book Graffiti (1960), where he organises them in nine chapters, each with their own theme. The first chapter was entitled “The Wall as Proposition”, followed by “Language of the Wall”, “The Birth of Mankind”, “Masks and Faces”, “Animals”, “Love”, “Death”, “Magic”, and “Primitive Images”.

Presented here are around forty of Brassaï’s graffiti photographs, including
the well-known Le Roi Soleil (The Sun King). In several articles,
Brassaï wrote about his comprehensive graffiti series, explaining how
he understood these spontaneous signs on the city’s walls as a form
of archetypal writing. He saw the motifs as representing mythological
figures like demons, heroes and gods, comparing them to children’s
drawings and cave paintings. He shared this interest with the Surrealists
and one of Brassaï’s first articles was published under the title
“Du mur et des cavernes au mur d’usine” (From cave walls to factory
walls) in Minotaure no. 3-4 1933, a Surrealist-oriented art journal.

Brassaï developed his thoughts on graffiti in dialogue with others, notably the artist Pablo Picasso and the poet Jacques Prévert. At the same time, the French artist Jean Dubuffet developed the term l’art brut (raw art) in his search for a more original, primitive imagery beyond the art establishment. Graffiti came to be part of this artistic movement and Dubuffet included photographs by Brassaï in his vast collection, now housed at the museum Collection de l’Art Brut in
Lausanne. The first monographic exhibition of the series, Language of the Wall. Parisian Graffiti Photographed by Brassaï, was presented in 1956 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It featured some 120 photographs, among them a number in larger formats, a few of which are also included in this exhibition.

Conversations with Picasso

The artist who came to mean the most to Brassaï was Pablo Picasso. They were introduced to each other in 1932 by the publisher Tériade, ahead of an assignment for the Surrealist magazine Minotaure. This led to Brassaï photographing Picasso’s sculptures for an article by André Breton. In the 1930s, they moved in the same circles, but it was not until the war years in the early 1940s that their friendship deepened. Brassaï continued documenting Picasso in his studio – his sculptures, work process, visiting artist friends – collating his recollections of their encounters in the book Conversations with Picasso (1964). Reflected in recurring motifs in their respective oeuvres, such as acrobats, horses and clowns, is their shared love of the circus, which they often attended together. There are several examples from the legendary Cirque Medrano on boulevard Marguerite de Rochechouart in Montmartre, a place that had been a hub for artists and performers since the late nineteenth century.

Chez Suzy

In the 1930s, bordellos were still a lucrative industry. The businesses were spread all over the city, both in affluent areas and in those marked by organised crime. Often there was just an illuminated, enlarged house number sign indicating that there was a bordello behind the closed doors. Chez Suzy was a smaller bordello in the Latin Quarter, where clients could come and go completely anonymously. Brassaï photographed the Madame and “her girls”, for example when meeting with a client. Later, it was revealed that the man seen in these images was Brassaï’s assistant Gabriel Kiss and that the captured events were staged, which was probably necessary in order to uphold the promised customer discretion. When the so-called Marthe Richard law came into power in 1946, the system in which prostitutes were controlled by the state, forced to register with the police and undergo regular medical exams was abolished. The law also criminalised pimping. As a result, over one hundred bordellos in Paris closed down.

As Long as There Are Animals

In the years 1954 and 1955 Brassaï returned again and again to Zoo de Vincennes (Parc zoologique de Paris), not with his still camera but with a 16 mm film camera. The result is the 1956 short film Tant qu’il y aura des bêtes (As Long as There Are Animals), in which the animals’ movements and behaviour produce a kind of visual choreography. The film consists of a series of scenes that register rather than explain, working with repetition, rhythm, and form. It was first shown at the Cannes film festival in 1956, where it won an honorary mention for innovative and experimental short film: Mention au film de recherche – court métrage. In retrospect, it appears as a moving-image work related to Brassaï’s graffiti studies, reflecting his interest in the hidden
patterns of existence.

Wall texts from the exhibition

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Fumeuse dopium au chat/Opium smoker with cat
c. 1931
Vintage silver gelatin print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
La grosse Claude et son amie, au Monocle/Fat Claude and her Girlfriend, at Le Monocle
c. 1932
Vintage silver gelatin print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

Violette Morris, known as Fat Claude, was a multi-talented athlete who excelled in soccer, car racing, shot put, and boxing during the 1920s. She was well-known in Parisian bohemian and queer circles, frequently dressed in men’s suits, and captured iconically by Brassaï. During the Nazi occupation of France, Morris became an informer and collaborator for the Gestapo, accused of passing French military secrets and intelligence to Germany. She was assassinated by the French Resistance in 1944 while driving her car in Normandy.

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
Escalier de la Butte Montmartre/Steps of Montmartre
c. 1937
Vintage silver gelatin print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

 

Brassaï (Hungarian-French, 1899-1984)
La Tour Eiffel éclairée/The Eiffel Tower Illuminated
1931
Vintage silver gelatin print
© Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles 2026

 

 

Brassaï – The Secret Signs of Paris exhibition catalogue cover

 

 

Explore the exhibition catalogue

An extensive catalogue accompanies the exhibition, published by Moderna Museet and Silvana Editoriale, Milan.

The catalogue reproduces all of the more than 160 photographs included in the exhibition and features, among other texts, a piece by Brassaï himself, one by his nephew Philippe Ribeyrolles, along with a newly written essay by the French author Nina Bouraoui. Design: Malmsten Hellberg, Stockholm.

Writers: Nina Bouraoui, Brassaï, Philippe Ribeyrolles, Anna Tellgren
Editor: Anna Tellgren
Binding: Hardcover with dust jacket
Language: English
Graphic design: Malmsten Hellberg
Format: 21.7 × 28 cm
Number of pages: 208
Number of images: approx. 160

ISBN 978-91-988136-1-6

Published in collaboration with Silvana Editoriale, Milan

 

 

Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Moderna Museet is ten minutes away from Kungsträdgården, and twenty minutes from T-Centralen or Gamla Stan. Walk past Grand Hotel and Nationalmuseum on Blasieholmen, opposite the Royal Palace. After crossing the bridge to Skeppsholmen, continue up the hill. The entrance to Moderna Museet and Arkitekturmuseet is on the left-hand side.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11 – 18
Monday closed

Moderna Museet website

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