id:			165604
accession number:	2007.38
share license status:	Copyrighted
url:			https://clevelandart.org/art/2007.38
updated:		2022-01-04 17:41:19.019000

Two Acrobats, Cirque Médrano in Paris, 1932-1933. Brassaï (French, 1899-1984). Gelatin silver print, ferrotyped; image: 27.7 x 23.4 cm (10 7/8 x 9 3/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, John L. Severance Fund 2007.38 © The Brassaï Estate - RMN 

title:				Two Acrobats, Cirque Médrano in Paris
title in original language:	
series:				
series in original language:	
creation date:			1932-1933
creation date earliest:		1932
creation date latest:		1933
current location:		
creditline:			John L. Severance Fund
copyright:			© The Brassaï Estate - RMN 

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culture:	France, 20th century
technique:	gelatin silver print, ferrotyped
department:	Photography
collection:	PH - French 20th Century
type:		Photograph
find spot:	
catalogue raisonne: 

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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.
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measurements: Image: 27.7 x 23.4 cm (10 7/8 x 9 3/16 in.)
state of the work:	
edition of the work: 	

support materials:


inscriptions:

	inscription:	Written in pencil on verso: "2 eprilisites Cirque Medrano à Paris/B& Roche Chouant vers 1932-1933/7130"
Written in black marker on verso: "Pl. 1155"
Written in pencil on verso: "Lilliput Dec 1948/conversation avec Picasso pp 30-31-Gallinard/F pp. 20-22 Doubleday MI"

	translation:	
	remark:		

	inscription:	Purple copyright stamp on verso of print: "© COPYRIGHT by BRASSAÏ/81, Faubourg St.-Jacques/PARISXIV/Tel. 707.23.41"
	translation:	
	remark:		

	inscription:	Black stamp on verso of print: BRASSAÏ/81, RUE DU St. JACQUES/PARIS-XIV/TÉLÉPH.: PORT-ROYAL 23-41
	translation:	
	remark:		

	inscription:	Black agency stamp on verso of print: RAPHO GUILLUMETTE PICTURES. . . New York [crossed out]
	translation:	
	remark:		

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CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

	title:		París y los Surrealistas.
	opening date:   2005-02-18T05:00:00
	<i>París y los Surrealistas.</i>. Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, Spain (February 18-May 22, 2005); Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao (June 20-September 18, 2005).

	title:		Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography
	opening date:   2014-10-19T00:00:00
	<i>Forbidden Games: Surrealist and Modernist Photography</i>. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 19, 2014-January 11, 2015).

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LEGACY EXHIBITIONS

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PROVENANCE

	Madame Brassaï [1920-2005], Paris
	date: 
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	citations: 	


	(Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, NY)
	date: 
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	citations: 	


	David Raymond [b.1979], NY
	date: 2007
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


	The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
	date: 
	footnotes: 	
	citations: 	


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fun fact: 


digital description: 


wall description: 
Picasso had been depicting the performers at the Cirque Médrano in Paris since 1905. On the back of another print of this image, Brassaï noted that he had gone to the circus with Picasso, who several days later produced another series about the circus inspired by these same aerialists.
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RELATED WORKS

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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. 132, p. 180
	url:		

	Combalía Dexeus, Victoria. París y los surrealistas. Bilbao: Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao, 2005.
	page number: 	p. 230
	url:		

	Brassai and Popper. "Tigers, Tumblers, and the Flying Trapeze." <em>Lilliput 23, no 6 </em>(December 1948): 70.
	page number: 	p. 70
	url:		

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IMAGES