id: 165543 accession number: 2007.282 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2007.282 updated: 2022-01-04 17:41:04.024000 Novice Prostitute, Place d'Italie, c. 1931 (printed 1950s). Brassaï (French, 1899-1984). Gelatin silver print, ferrotyped; image: 23.5 x 17.5 cm (9 1/4 x 6 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of David Raymond 2007.282 © The Brassaï Estate - RMN title: Novice Prostitute, Place d'Italie title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: c. 1931 (printed 1950s) creation date earliest: 1926 creation date latest: 1936 current location: creditline: Gift of David Raymond copyright: © The Brassaï Estate - RMN --- culture: France, 20th century technique: gelatin silver print, ferrotyped department: Photography collection: PH - French 20th Century type: Photograph find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Brassaï (French, 1899-1984) - artist Brassaï (Gyula Halász) French, born Austria-Hungary, 1899-1984 A photographer, painter, sculptor, and writer, Brassaï 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 Brassaï (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 Brassaï began to take photographs, receiving advice from Hungarian photographer André Kertész. 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 Brassaï'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. Brassaï 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, André Breton, Tristan Tzara, and Man Ray. During the German occupation of Paris in the 1940s, no longer able to wander freely through the streets, Brassaï turned to drawing; he also began to photograph Picasso's sculpture in his Paris studio. After the war, Brassaï 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 bêtes and in 1964 published a critically acclaimed book, Conversations avec Picasso. Throughout his career Brassaï 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. --- measurements: Image: 23.5 x 17.5 cm (9 1/4 x 6 7/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Written in pencil on verso: "Fille en robe frientauere (not sure if that is correct) Italie vers 1931 No 15 (in a circle)/11/15 Pl. 327 Written in pencil on verso: Brassaï (signed, possibly, not clear)" translation: remark: inscription: Stamps on verso of print: "BRASSAÏ/81, rue de Faub.-St. Jacques/PARIS XIV-PORt-Royal 23-41; © COPYRIGHT by BRASSAÏ/81, Faubourg St. Jacques/PARIS 14ème Tel. 707.23.41 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Begierde im Blick: Surrealistische Fotografie opening date: 2009-05-11T04:00:00 Begierde im Blick: Surrealistische Fotografie. Hamburger Kunsthalle (May 11-29, 2009). title: Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography opening date: 2014-10-19T00:00:00 Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 19, 2014-January 11, 2015). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Madame Brassai [1920-2005], Paris date: footnotes: citations: (Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY) date: footnotes: citations: David Raymond [b.1979], New York, NY date: 2007 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: Unlike Brassaï, whose views of Parisian night life included people of all professions and proclivities, Monsieur X devoted himself to one subject: erotic views of the women in a Paris brothel. This amateur, whose identifity remains unknown, took professional quality photographs in the 1920s and 1930s purely for his own pleasure. Not until he was in his eighties did he sell them to a bookseller known for his discretion. The Three Graces, female figures who served as exemplars of beauty, charm, and creativity in Greek and Roman mythology, have been a popular subject in art since the Renaissance. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E. Hinson, Ian Walker, and Lisa Kurzner. Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography : the David Raymond Collection in the Cleveland Museum of Art. 2014. page number: cat. no. 137, p. 182 url: Schneede, Uwe M. Begierde im Blick: surrealistische Photographie. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2005. page number: p. 57 url: --- IMAGES