The Night Watchman

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It was especially after World War II, when Europe was in ruins and civilization had been bested for a while by its discontents, that Brassai discovered the weird beauty of graffiti. Just as he had seen what was lovely in the louche spectacle of the Parisian cafes, he recognized what was indelible about graffiti, the bad penmanship of the group unconscious. In his photographs of the stick figures and screaming heads carved and scribbled on Paris walls, you find the most unruly human impulses--sex, anger, even exaltation--brought alive and made legible in odd corners.

Brassai's graffiti pictures would be immensely influential among postwar artists like Jean Dubuffet and Antoni Tapies, who were sifting the rubble for a new imagery suited to a postapocalyptic world. Brassai would also make a considerable name for himself through his camera portraits of the artists and writers who were his friends, including Picasso, Miller, Matisse and Giacometti. But his greatest work will always be his views of nocturnal Paris. He made the night something to see.