Brassai (3 ! BOOKS) - Paroles + Histoires + La pluis et la beau temps - 1949-1963

A VERY SPECIAL LOT FOR EVERY COLLECTOR of Brassai ("Paris de Nuit") or Jacques Prévert or just special things:
Three famous literature books by Jacques Prevert from the 50ties and 60ties (1949, 1955 and 1963) in the very smart pocket version: "Paroles", "La Pleue et le Beau Temps" and "Paroles" - each with a photo of Brassai's famous series "Graffiti" (the same-named book i am offering also in this auction) on the cover; inside just text.

ALL FIRST EDITIONS in that version.

Brassai ("Paris de Nuit"), pseudonym of Gyula Halász (1899-1984), legendary Hungarian–French photographer, sculptor, medalist, writer, and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. He was one of the numerous Hungarian artists who flourished in Paris beginning between the world wars.

Welcome to the auction by Anatole Desachy (France) and Ecki Heuser (Germany) - in honor of „French photobooks“.
To celebrate the 55th edition of ‘’Les Rencontres d’Arles’’ - we have gathered 110 books (55 each).

IF YOU WIN MORE THAN 1 OF MY BOOKS IN THIS AUCTION, YOU WILL PAY ONLY 1 X SHIPPING COSTS - WORLDWIDE.

1. "Paroles"
Edition Gallimard. Le point du jour. 1949. First edition, first printing.
Paperback (as issued). 110 x 165 mm. 256 pages. Cover photo: Brassai. Text: Jacques Prévert. Text in French.
Condition:
Inside fresh and clean with no marks and with no foxing; first title page with cut-out (missing part) at the top (deleting previous owner mark), otherwise flawless. Outside fresh with very light trace of use; no remarkable flaws or defects. Overall good condition.

2. "La Pluie et Beau Temps"
Edition Gallimard. Le point du jour. 1955. First edition, first printing.
Paperback (as issued). 110 x 165 mm. 256 pages. Cover photo: Brassai. Text: Jacques Prévert. Text in French.
Condition:
Inside fresh and flawless; clean with no marks and with no foxing. Outside fresh with very light trace of use; no remarkable flaws or defects. Overall very fine condition.

3. "Histories"
Edition Gallimard. Le point du jour. 1963. First edition, first printing.
Paperback (as issued). 110 x 165 mm. 256 pages. Cover photo: Brassai. Text: Jacques Prévert. Text in French.
Inside fresh and flawless; clean with no marks and with no foxing. Outside fresh with very light trace of use, no remarkable flaws or defects; bigger stain at the bottom edge. The book looks a bit warped. Overall fine condition.

Brassai is one of the big famous names of French photography, famous for "Paris de Nuit" from 1933 (Andrew Roth, The Book of 101 Books, page 76/77; Martin Parr, The Photobook, vol 1, page 134; The Open Book, Hasselblad Center, page 110/111; 802 photo books from the M.+ M. Auer collection, page 198), "Graffiti" and many other great photobooks.

"In the early 21st century, the discovery of more than 200 letters and hundreds of drawings and other items from the period 1940 to 1984 has provided scholars with material for understanding his later life and career.
Gyula (Julius) Halász, Brassaï (pseudonym) was born on 9 September 1899 in Brassó, Kingdom of Hungary (today Brașov, Romania) to an Armenian mother and a Hungarian father. He grew up speaking Hungarian and Romanian. When he was three his family lived in Paris for a year, while his father, a professor of French literature, taught at the Sorbonne.
As a young man, Halász studied painting and sculpture at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts (Magyar Képzőművészeti Egyetem) in Budapest. He joined a cavalry regiment of the Austro-Hungarian army, where he served until the end of the First World War.
He cited Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as an artistic influence.
Following WWI, his hometown of Brassó, and the rest of Transylvania, was transferred from the Kingdom of Hungary to Romania at the Treaty of Trianon. Halász left for Berlin in 1920 where he worked as a journalist for the Hungarian papers Keleti and Napkelet. He started studies at the Berlin-Charlottenburg Academy of Fine Arts (Hochschule für Bildende Künste), now Universität der Künste Berlin. There he became friends with several older Hungarian artists and writers, including the painters Lajos Tihanyi and Bertalan Pór, and the writer György Bölöni, each of whom later moved to Paris and became part of the Hungarian circle.
In 1924, Halasz moved to Paris to live, where he would stay for the rest of his life. He began teaching himself the French language by reading the works of Marcel Proust. Living among the gathering of young artists in the Montparnasse quarter, he took a job as a journalist. He soon became friends with the American writer Henry Miller, and the French writers Léon-Paul Fargue and Jacques Prévert. In the late 1920s, he lived in the same hotel as Tihanyi.
Miller later played down Brassai's claims of friendship. In 1976 he wrote of Brassai: "Fred [Perles] and I used to steer shy of him – he bored us." Miller added that the biography Brassai had written of him was typically "padded", "full of factual errors, full of suppositions, rumors, documents he filched which are largely false or give a false impression."
Halász's job and his love of the city, whose streets he often wandered late at night, led to photography. He first used it to supplement some of his articles for more money, but rapidly explored the city through this medium, in which he was tutored by his fellow Hungarian André Kertész. He later wrote that he used photography "to capture the beauty of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and to capture Paris by night." Using the name of his birthplace, Halász went by the pseudonym "Brassaï," which means "from Brasso."
Brassaï captured the essence of the city in his photographs, published as his first collection in the 1933 book entitled Paris de nuit (Paris by Night). His book gained great success, resulting in being called "the eye of Paris" in an essay by Henry Miller. In addition to photos of the seedier side of Paris, Brassai portrayed scenes from the life of the city's high society, its intellectuals, its ballet, and the grand operas. He had been befriended by a French family who gave him access to the upper classes. Brassai photographed many of his artist friends, including Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and several of the prominent writers of his time, such as Jean Genet and Henri Michaux.
Young Hungarian artists continued to arrive in Paris through the 1930s and the Hungarian circle absorbed most of them. Kertèsz immigrated to New York City in 1936. Brassai befriended many of the new arrivals, including Ervin Marton, a nephew of Tihanyi, whom he had been friends with since 1920. Marton developed his own reputation in street photography in the 1940s and 1950s. Brassaï continued to earn a living with commercial work, also taking photographs for the U.S. magazine Harper's Bazaar.
He was a founding member of the Rapho agency, created in Paris by Charles Rado in 1933.
Brassaï's photographs brought him international fame. In 1948, he had a one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, which travelled to George Eastman House in Rochester, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois. MoMA exhibited more of Brassai's works in 1953, 1956, and 1968. He was presented at the Rencontres d'Arles festival in France in 1970 (screening at the Théâtre Antique, Brassaï by Jean-Marie Drot), in 1972 (screening Brassaï si, Vominino by René Burri), and in 1974 (as guest of honour).
In 1979 Brassaï was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum."
(Wikipedia)