Brassaï: Secret Paris, a major survey exhibition of work by the eminent Hungarian-born French photographer Brassaï has opened at Heide Museum of Modern Art.
On display until 15 November 2026, the exhibition marks the most comprehensive presentation of Brassaï’s work ever seen in Australia, and his first solo exhibition in the country in over five decades.
It is the third major modernist photography exhibition presented by Heide in five years, following the acclaimed Man Ray and Max Dupain in 2025 and Surrealist Lee Miller in 2023. Brassaï: Secret Paris brings together more than 150 original vintage prints depicting the City of Light in the 1930s.
Co-curated by Heide Artistic Director Lesley Harding, Philippe Ribeyrolles, manager and curator of the Estate Brassaï and nephew of the artist, and renowned French photography curator Emmanuelle de l’Ecotais, the exhibition encompasses Brassaï’s greatest achievements.
These include his iconic atmospheric black-and-white images of Paris and its people by night, his relationships with leading figures of the Parisian avant-garde, his experiments with Surrealism, and hallmark photographs of graffiti captured at the dawn of contemporary street art.
“Brassaï is one of the great photographers of the twentieth century, and we are delighted to bring this depth of work to Australian audiences for the first time in a generation,” said Lesley Harding, Artistic Director Heide Museum of Modern Art.
“His images continue to resonate nearly a century on, and in presenting the full breadth of his practice, from night photographs and graffiti to surrealist experiments and portraits of his inner circle, this exhibition at Heide reveals an artist of remarkable range and vision,” said Harding.
“This exhibition was prepared in the heart of Paris, in the very place where Brassaï lived and where his memory still endures. I personally wished to imbue this presentation with the familial spirit and soul that belonged to the Brassaï I knew, and which I strive to preserve in my capacity as the artist’s nephew,” said Philippe Ribeyrolles of the Estate Brassaï.
“For this reason, the exhibition is conceived as an invitation to journey into the heart of an oeuvre focused primarily on the secret Paris of the 1930s, through a selection of photographs whose prints were all made by Brassaï himself. For Henry Miller, Brassaï was the ‘Eye of Paris’. Even today, it is this eye that teaches us not only how to see, but above all how to look.”
Born in 1899 in Transylvania (present-day Romania), Brassaï arrived in Paris in the 1920s, where he would spend the remainder of his working life. Working through the night in Montparnasse and its surroundings, Brassaï documented an unseen Paris, its cafes, bars, street corners, sex workers and the demimonde, with a clarity and psychological depth that set him apart from his contemporaries. In 1933 he published the photo book, Paris de nuit (Paris by Night), which established him as one of the defining photographers of the 20th century.
Central to the exhibition is Brassaï’s close friendship with Pablo Picasso, documented across decades of photographs made in Picasso’s studio, alongside portraits of Salvador Dalí, writer Henry Miller, and cabaret singer Kiki de Montparnasse. Moving within the innermost circles of the Parisian avant-garde, Brassaï captured these figures with the same intimacy he brought to the city’s margins.
Other significant works in the exhibition trace Brassaï’s sustained interest in early graffiti: crude marks, faces and figures carved into the stone walls of Paris, which he photographed over many years. These photographs, presented in his landmark 1956 exhibition Language of the Wall at MoMA New York, position Brassaï as an observer of vernacular mark-making at a moment before contemporary street art existed as a category.
The exhibition will also include his experimental portfolio, Transmutations (1934–35), containing photomontage and collage inspired by the Dadaists and Surrealists, exploring alternative realities below the surface of the photographic image.
Adding local context to the exhibition, Brassaï had a relationship with Australian art dealer Georges Mora, and had two exhibitions at his Tolarno Galleries in Melbourne in 1979 and 1980. A work purchased by Heide founders John and Sunday Reed during that period will be included in the exhibition.
Accompanying Brassaï: Secret Paris is a comprehensive catalogue featuring an essay by Gael Newton AM tracing Brassaï’s impact on Australian photography including W.L. Lucke-Meyer’s photo book, Melbourne by Night (1933), a personal contribution on the man and artist by Philippe Ribeyrolles, a curatorial overview by Emmanuelle de l’Ecotais, and new research on Brassaï’s influence on the Heide artists by Lesley Harding.
Brassaï: Secret Paris
Heide Museum of Modern Art, 7 Templestowe Road, Bulleen
Exhibition continues to 15 November 2026
Entry fees apply
For more information, visit: www.heide.com.au for details.
Images: Couple d’amoureux dans un petit café parisien, Place d’Italie, Paris, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, 29 x 23.5 cm © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles | Escalier de la Butte Montmartre, c. 1937, gelatin silver print, 24 x 18 cm © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles | Autoportrait, Boulevard Blanqui, Paris, c. 1931, gelatin silver print, 29.7 x 23 cm © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles | Colonne Morris, 1933, gelatin silver print, 30 x 20 cm © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles | La Môme Bijou au Bar de la Lune, Montmartre, c. 1932, gelatin silver print, 51 x 40 cm © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles | Graffiti – “Le Roi Soleil”, de la série IX Images primitives, 1932–1956, gelatin silver print © Estate Brassaï Succession – Philippe Ribeyrolles