Gyula Halász was born in Brassó in Transylvania, Austria-Hungary in 1899. His family moved to Paris for a year when he was only three. As a young man, he was interested in art and studied painting and sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. Later, in 1920 he worked as a journalist and Berlin and studied at the Berlin-Charlottenburg Academy of Fine Arts. In 1924, Gyula moved back to Paris, where he would live for the rest of his life. He loved the city and needed to learn French and he learned by reading many books in the language. Andre Kertesz introduced and encouraged him to take up photography because he disliked it during his early years of journalism, but he gradually fell in love with it.
He began wandering around the streets …show more content…
Brassai’s solution was effective. He focused his camera on a tripod, opened the shutter when ready, and fired a flashbulb. He enjoyed photographing the interesting characters that came out at night and the nighttime scenes, but he also photographed scenes of the city’s high society. These included intellectuals, ballet, and grand operas. Brassai also took pictures of many of his artist friends, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, plus many famous writers of the time. His photographs brought him international fame. This led to one man shows in the United States at the Art Institute of Chicago and the New York City Museum of Modern Arts and other venues. After the outbreak of the Second World War, when Germany occupied Paris, Brassai escaped to the south of the country, but returned to rescue some negatives he left behind. He turned to drawing and sculpting during this time because photography on the streets was prohibited. These drawings were published after the end of the war. The end of the war also signaled Brassai’s return to photography. He also took photos of murals and graffiti in Paris. The pictures showed the transformation of graffiti in the city. These photos were the subject of the one man show in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Also, several tapestries were made based off of the graffiti