Backstage at the Folies-Bergère, Paris
c. 1932
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 23.1 x 17.3 cm (9 1/8 x 6 13/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Robert B. Menschel Fund
Accession Number
1998.38.1
Art Historical Context
Step behind the velvet curtain of 1930s Paris with Brassaï's *Backstage at the Foliesergère, Paris* (c. 1932), a captivating gelatin silver print that captures the intimate, glamorous world of the iconic music hall. Hungarian-born photographer Gyula Halász, known as Brassaï immortalized the city's nocturnal pulse in works like his seminal book *Paris by Night (1933). Here, he reveals the hidden preparations of performers amid mirrors, costumes, and soft lighting, offering a voyeuristic glimpse into the spectacle that enchanted audiences from Toulouse-Lautrec's era onward. The Folies-Bergère, ...
About the Artist
Brassaï
Brassaï was born Gyula Halász on September 9, 1899, in Brassó, Transylvania — a city then part of Austria-Hungary and now Brașov, Romania — from which he would eventually take his celebrated pseudonym. After studying painting and sculpture at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest and later at Berlin's Academy of Fine Arts, he settled in Paris in 1924, initially working as a journalist and...