Photofile Brassai

Book excerpt: An new volume in Photofile, the accessible and affordable photography series No photographer is more closely associated with a city than Brassai (1899–1984) is with Paris. From the moment he moved there in 1924, he devoted his life and art to immortalizing his adopted city—capturing the street life by day, the cafés and the Seine by night. A friend of Picasso and Henry Miller, Brassai knew and photographed the leading figures of his day—Giacometti, Sartre, Dalí, Matisse, and Mann among them. His most famous portraits and cityscapes, collected in this volume, form a unique vision of life in pre- and post-war Europe. The Photofile series brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers in an attractive format and at an affordable price. Handsome and collectable, the books are produced to the highest standards. Each volume contains some sixty full page reproductions, a critical introduction and a full bibliography. The series was awarded the first annual prize for distinguished photographic books by the International Center of Photography.