{ "data": { "id": 156888, "accession_number": "1992.97", "share_license_status": "Copyrighted", "tombstone": "Lesbian Couple at Le Monocle, 1932. Brassa\u00ef (French, 1899\u20131984). Gelatin silver print; image: 37.9 x 28 cm (14 15/16 x 11 in.); matted: 55.9 x 45.7 cm (22 x 18 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Anselm Talalay in honor of Evan Turner, 1992.97. \u00a9 The Brassa\u00ef Estate - RMN ", "current_location": null, "title": "Lesbian Couple at Le Monocle", "creation_date": "1932", "creation_date_earliest": 1932, "creation_date_latest": 1932, "artists_tags": [ "male" ], "culture": [ "France" ], "technique": "gelatin silver print", "support_materials": [], "department": "Photography", "collection": "PH - French 20th Century", "type": "Photograph", "measurements": "Image: 37.9 x 28 cm (14 15/16 x 11 in.); Matted: 55.9 x 45.7 cm (22 x 18 in.)", "dimensions": { "image": { "height": 0.379, "height_inch": 14, "height_inch_fraction": 0.9375, "width": 0.28, "width_inch": 11, "width_inch_fraction": 0.0 }, "matted": { "height": 0.559, "height_inch": 22, "height_inch_fraction": 0.0, "width": 0.457, "width_inch": 18, "width_inch_fraction": 0.0 } }, "state_of_the_work": null, "edition_of_the_work": null, "copyright": "\u00a9 The Brassa\u00ef Estate - RMN ", "inscriptions": [], "exhibitions": { "current": [ { "id": 311486, "title": "Signs of Affection: Gifts Honoring the Museum's 75th Anniversary", "description": "Signs of Affection: Gifts Honoring the Museum's 75th Anniversary. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 27, 1992-January 3, 1993).", "opening_date": "1992-10-27T05:00:00" }, { "id": 311875, "title": "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art", "description": "Legacy of Light: Master Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 24, 1996-February 2, 1997).", "opening_date": "1996-11-24T05:00:00" }, { "id": 221211, "title": "Brassa\u00ef: The Eye of Paris", "description": "Brassa\u00ef: The Eye of Paris. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (organizer) (December 6, 1998-February 28, 1999); J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (April 14-July 4, 1999); National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (October 17, 1999-January 16, 2000).", "opening_date": "1998-12-06T00:00:00" }, { "id": 230613, "title": "Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris", "description": "Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris. Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (June 9-October 10, 2010).", "opening_date": "2008-10-10T00:00:00" } ], "legacy": [] }, "provenance": [ { "description": "Anselm Talalay [1912-1994] and Marjorie Freedman Talalay [1921-2008], Cleveland, OH", "citations": [], "footnotes": [], "date": "?-1992", "sortorder": 1 }, { "description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH", "citations": [], "footnotes": [], "date": "May 18, 1992", "sortorder": 2 } ], "find_spot": null, "related_works": [], "former_accession_numbers": [], "did_you_know": "Gyula Hal\u00e1sz photographed under the pseudonym Brassa\u00ef, or person from Brass\u00f3, his birthplace in Hungary (now Bra\u0219ov, Romania).
", "early_education_description": null, "artlens_description": null, "description": "Brassa\u00ef's best-known photographs of the 1930s describe the nocturnal atmosphere of Paris, recording the misty streets and smoke-filled caf\u00e9s frequented by artists, poets, writers, and other colorful characters. Although working with a cumbersome magnesium flash, Brassa\u00ef was so sensitive to his surroundings that his subjects remained entirely at ease before the camera. This photograph, taken at a bar owned by Lulu de Montparnasse on the rue Edgar Quinet, captures a relaxed couple enjoying a late evening. Brassa\u00ef was one of the first to exploit the full pictorial possibilities of night photography, creating a new aesthetic based on the curious and harsh effects of gas and electric lights.", "external_resources": { "wikidata": [ "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60781125" ], "internet_archive": [] }, "citations": [ { "citation": "Turner, Evan H. \u201cThe Year in Review for 1992.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38\u201379.", "page_number": "Mentioned: p. 68", "url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25161388" }, { "citation": "\"1992 Annual Report.\" The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 6 (July 1993): 215-295.", "page_number": "Reproduced: p. 246", "url": "https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161418" }, { "citation": "Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.", "page_number": "Reproduced: P. 108", "url": "" } ], "url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1992.97", "images": {}, "alternate_images": [], "creditline": "Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Anselm Talalay in honor of Evan Turner", "image_credit": null, "sketchfab_id": null, "sketchfab_url": null, "gallery_donor_text": null, "athena_id": 156888, "creators": [ { "id": 46, "description": "Brassa\u00ef (French, 1899\u20131984)", "extent": null, "qualifier": null, "role": "artist", "biography": "Brassa\u00ef (Gyula Hal\u00e1sz) French, born Austria-Hungary, 1899-1984 A photographer, painter, sculptor, and writer, Brassa\u00ef became known during the 1930s for his photographs of Parisian nightlife. Initially interested in painting, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Budapest (1918-19), and the Academische Hochschule, Berlin-Charlottenburg (1921-22). He adopted the name Brassa\u00ef (after his hometown, Brasso) following his move in 1924 to Paris, where he worked as a painter and journalist for Hungarian and German newspapers. Around 1929-30 Brassa\u00ef began to take photographs, receiving advice from Hungarian photographer Andr\u00e9 Kert\u00e9sz. His special interest was the city at night; during his walks after dark he photographed Paris dance halls, cafes, bars, and bordellos, as well as the vagrants and thugs who roamed the dimly lit streets. In 1933 Brassa\u00ef's nocturnal views of Paris were published as Paris de Nuit (Paris by Night). The book was a great success and helped to launch his photographic career. Brassa\u00ef began to receive assignments from such journals as Verve, Labyrinthe, and Minotaure, a new review of art and literature which commissioned him to photograph artists and their studios. He also became associated with Harper's Bazaar and over the next three decades completed many assignments for the magazine. Among the artists and writers he came to know during this period were Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Alberto Giacometto, Andr\u00e9 Breton, Tristan Tzara, and Man Ray. During the German occupation of Paris in the 1940s, no longer able to wander freely through the streets, Brassa\u00ef turned to drawing; he also began to photograph Picasso's sculpture in his Paris studio. After the war, Brassa\u00ef continued his photographic series Graffiti and designed the photographic backdrops for several plays and ballets; he also published Histoire de Marie (1949), a surrealist poem with a preface by Henry Miller. In the mid-1950s he won a prize at the Cannes film festival for his movie Tant qui'il y aura des b\u00eates and in 1964 published a critically acclaimed book, Conversations avec Picasso. Throughout his career Brassa\u00ef exhibited his pictures widely, including a one-person exhibition of his photographs of graffiti at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in the mid-1950s, followed by a retrospective of his work there in 1968. M.M.", "name_in_original_language": null, "birth_year": "1899", "death_year": "1984", "use_in_caption": true, "include_extent": false, "weight": 1 } ], "legal_status": "accessioned", "accession_date": "1992-05-18T00:00:00", "sortable_date": 1932, "date_added_to_oa": null, "date_text": "1932", "collapse_artists": false, "on_loan": false, "recently_acquired": false, "record_type": "object", "conservation_statement": null, "has_conservation_images": false, "cover_accession_number": null, "is_nazi_era_provenance": false, "impression": null, "alternate_titles": [], "is_highlight": false, "updated_at": "2026-08-22 11:53:16.819000" } }