The city of Paris bewitched Brassaï. 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. Their nocturnal surroundings

fascinated the artist, whose photographs

are as much an exploration of the technical

challenge of portraying darkness as

portraits of a hauntingly dramatic night

world. Paris by Night , first published in

1933, features over sixty of these poetic

images, and has become an acknowledged

classic of urban photography.

Brassaï moved in the same circles as the

Surrealists - he met Picasso in 1932, and

worked on Le Minotaure , the famous

Surrealist review. He retained a very

individual creative vision, however, commenting

: "The surreal effect of my pictures

was nothing more than reality made

fantastic through a particular vision. All I

wanted to express was reality, for nothing is

more surreal." This uniquely modern

perspective has inspired a new generation

of art critics and historians, and the

centenary of Brassaï's birth has been the

catalyst for major retrospective exhibitions

at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Houston

Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery

in Washington, D.C. and the Hayward

Gallery, London.

As part of this tribute, the current long-overdue

reissue of Paris by Night brings one

of the last century's key photographic works

back into print.