Judy and Michael Mattis announced that The Secret Paris of the 1930s: Vintage Photographs by Brassaï, a show from their collection, is now on view at the Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery at Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsylvania, through April 5, 2026.
Early 20th century Paris was the setting for one of the great flowerings that have periodically punctuated the history of photography. Among the many foreign photographers drawn to Paris was Brassaï (1899-1984), whose evocative, inky-black vintage photographs of night-time Paris are presented in this exhibition.
Born Gyula Halász, Brassaï adopted the nom de plume from his birthplace, Brasso, a Hungarian (now Romanian) town in the Transylvanian region. After attending art school in Berlin, Brassaï moved to Paris in 1924, and stayed for good. A gifted sculptor and sketch artist, he learned the technical aspects of photography from his fellow Hungarian-in-Paris André Kertész, but the two artists’ subject matter could not have been more different. In contrast to Kertész’s cool compositions and meticulous still lifes, Brassaï’s oeuvre focused on Paris’s crepuscular demimonde, which he explored compulsively from the first moment of his arrival (shades of another Transylvanian denizen of the night?). Sometimes alone, sometimes accompanied by friends like the writers Henry Miller or Jacques Prévert, Brassaï witnessed aspects of Parisian night life that the cerebral Kertész would never imagine.
The Secret Paris of the 1930s : Vintage Photographs by Brassaï
through April 5, 2026
Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery
Lebanon Valley College
75 N White Oak St, Annville, PA 17003
https://www.lvc.edu/suzanne-h-arnold-art-gallery/
