La route d`aigle, 1940-tallet

Brassaï was born in Romania and grew up in Hungary. As a young man he studied painting and sculpture in Budapest, and after the First World War settled in Berlin where he worked as a journalist. In 1924 he moved to Paris, where he found his true world among the artists and intellectuals of the Montparnasse quarter.

His fellow Hungarian André Kertész had a great influence on his photographic work – and so began a legendary career. By day he worked as a journalist, by night he roamed the streets of Paris, photographing in bars, bistros and brothels. The writer Henry Miller, who accompanied him on these nocturnal wanderings, gave him the nickname "the Eye of Paris." With his extraordinary eye for the hidden life of the city, Brassaï elevated night photography into a new visual language – and his images continue to inspire photographers to this day.