The 1968 composition, entitled ?Graffiti I?, features 23 photographs on doubleweight paper, originally designed for use as a wall montage.
The composition was one of about 600 drawings, photographs and sculptures put under the hammer by Drouot-Montaigne fetching a combined EUR 1.8 million.
Brassa? (1899-1984), born Gyula Halász, became perhaps the best-known Hungarian photographer next to André Kertész.
After studying in Budapest he moved to Berlin and became part of an artistic circle that included Kandinsky and Kokoschka. He settled in Paris in 1924 and submerged himself in the night-life of the city with the help of other Hungarians living there. Brassa? produced his first photographs in 1929. They conveyed the atmosphere of Paris and its maze of narrow streets. He developed the glass plates himself and made his own prints - something he continued to do for the rest of his life.
On of his friends in Paris, the American writer Henry Miller, wrote an essay entitled Brassa?: L?Oeil de Paris (The Eye of Paris), and the two men?s night time wanderings through some of the French capital?s lesser-known areas furnished the material for Paris de nuit (Paris by Night).
By the early 1930s, Brassa? was friends with some of the greatest artists of the 20th century, including Picasso, Dali, Matisse and Giacometti. He also befriended the poets Jacques Prévert and Raymond Queneau, and the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
He remained in Paris during World War II and wrote a book about the city?s occupation. After the war, he designed sets for theatre performances and made sculptures inspired by the pebbles he found in the Pyrenees.
Brassa? shot a film entitled ?So Long As There Are Animals? at the Vincennes Zoo, which was awarded the prize for most original film at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1956, an exhibition of his photographs of graffiti in Paris opened to great acclaim at New York?s MoMA.
In 1979, to mark his 80th birthday, Brassa? was f?ted with retrospectives in New York and London.
Brassa? received numerous awards during his life, including the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1976. He is buried in Paris? Montparnasse cemetery.
In 2000 a major retrospective of his works was held at the Pompidou Center in Paris.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
