This book was recommended to be by a gardening book that said he was the master of shadows and boy oh boy was the author right. First American Edition (1987) of a book originally published in France by Arts et Metiers Graphiques in 1933. Published for the first time in 1933 and originally designed by Brassaï himself, this is a high-quality reproduction of his legendary first book of photographs. Organized by Fundación MAPFRE and former MoMA curator Peter Galassi, the show, entitled “Brassaï,” opened in Spain earlier this year and landed at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) this month.

Brassaï moved in the same circles as the surrealists–he met Picasso in 1932, and worked on Le Minotaure, the famous surrealist review. George Brassaï (pseudonym of Gyula Halász) (9 September 1899 — 8 July 1984) was a Hungarian photographer, sculptor, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. First American edition: the original edition of Paris by Night, published as Paris de Nuit in 1933, contained 64 reproductions of photographs by Brassai, printed in heliogravure.There is plenty of atmosphere in the pictures and I particularly like the one of two policemen having a quiet cigarette out side their station.

The roads ebb by like frozen boiling rivers, through the blinding lights all effervescent yellow forever dimming upwards, hawking wares like glittering salvations from the heart of the night's pure diversion from diurnal life.

Working as a journalist by day, by night he roamed the streets of the capital and visited its bistros, sharing moments in the lives of the prostitutes and peddlers, down-and-outs, and illicit lovers who lived on the margins of society. The introduction, by Paul Morand, is elegant and does a good job of describing what Paris was like at that time. Paris by Night, first published in 1933, features sixty-two of these poetic images, and has become an acknowledged classic of urban photography.