Studio/Photography: Brassai and the Artists of the Ecole de Paris in Photography

• Applicant: Ulrike Blumenthal
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 552378825

The dissertation examines the numerous pictures of Parisian artists in their studios taken by Hungarian-French artist Brassai (1899-1984). The photographs of painters and sculptors such as Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Alberto Giacometti and Pablo Picasso played a decisive role in shaping the image of modern artists at large and the reception of the so called École de Paris in particular. They highlight the creation, mediatization and propagation of a romantic image of the artist that is closely linked to the historical narrative of the École de Paris and the process of its definition. Notions such as originality, imagination or inspiration were key points of reference for the self-understanding of this diverse group of artists, both native and expatriate, which art critics attempted to summarize under the banner of the École de Paris from the 1920s onwards. Four chapters explore how Brassai's photographs translate the image of the modern artist into the photographic medium, analyzing the formal language and aesthetic of the pictures, their historical and cultural context, and their forms of mediation. The photographs show an individual point of view that accentuates the artist’s personal environment, building on traditional concepts of the artist and his studio. They transfer iconic visual and literary topoi associated with the studio since 1800 into photographic representations: from Braque's portrayal of the studio as a sanctuary, to Picasso's studio interior mirroring individual's working habits and private rituals, and Giacometti's sculptor's studio as a place defined by its white plaster aura. Thereby, the photographs recall the documentary style of the New Vision, but are the result of the photographer's deliberate intervention. Brassai's sensitive depiction of the artistic work set new standards for representing artists' studios in the 1930s. Published in French art journals, his photographs offered the painters and sculptors of the École de Paris an effective and visible instrument to take control of their own narrative. The post-World War II publication of Brassai's photographs in American Harper's Bazaar speaks to the global visual eminence of Parisian artists and builds on a discourse in which the myth of the city of Paris meets the myth of the studio, mutually perpetuating their narratives. Brassai's pictures served as a vehicle for subsequent developments after 1945, when photographic depictions of Parisian artists in their studios by photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson and Alexander Liberman gained remarkable popularity. They contribute to the omnipresence of the modern artist figure, which has lost little of its power to this day. In their ambivalence of inclusion and exclusion, originality and repetition, Brassai's studio photographs reside within the tension of modernism and its myths, prompting reflection on the relevance of the autonomous concept of art within the contemporary discourse of today.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants