Brassaï (Gyula Halász)
[Photographer, b. 1889, Brassó, Transylvania, Hungary (now Romania), d. 1984, Eze, Alpes-Maritimes, France.]
Now that a perfect whole is slowly emerging from I develop day after day (light and shadow, front stairs and back stairs, the 500-franc banquet and the cesspit), I have to admit that I must truly be what an American writer, Henry Miller, called me: “the eye of Paris.” You see, even if it took a lot of struggle, I have wrested from fate the opportunity to give my talent free reign after all, although success and popularity come at a price: a permanent address, responsibility, social status, are precisely the bugaboos I have abhorred all my life.
