--- title: Brassaï in Paris: Classic Photos of the City of Light description: On the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Eiffel Tower, LIFE.com presents pictures from a new book, 'Brassaï: For the Love of Paris.' canonical: https://time.com/3879469/brassai-and-paris-classic-photos-of-the-city-of-light/ author: Liz Ronk article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-27T18:58:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:03:45.056Z og:title: Brassaï in Paris: Classic Photos of the City of Light og:description: On the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Eiffel Tower, LIFE.com presents pictures from a new book, 'Brassaï: For the Love of Paris.' og:url: https://time.com/3879469/brassai-and-paris-classic-photos-of-the-city-of-light/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bbaa747be919f66/69884b6f8e06014e42460003/140304-brassai-paris-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The Eiffel Tower, 1932 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Brassaï in Paris: Classic Photos of the City of Light twitter:description: On the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Eiffel Tower, LIFE.com presents pictures from a new book, 'Brassaï: For the Love of Paris.' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bbaa747be919f66/69884b6f8e06014e42460003/140304-brassai-paris-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Brassaï in Paris: A Photographer's Love Letter to the City of Light by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Mar 27, 2014 6:58 PM UTC  The Eiffel Tower, 1932. The Eiffel Tower, 1932.© 2013, Brassaï Estate by [Liz Ronk](https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/) ## Liz Ronk Mar 27, 2014 6:58 PM UTC It’s unlikely that any single artist has ever been — or ever will be — as intimately associated with Paris as the Hungarian-born photographer, writer and filmmaker Gyula Halász, known to the world as [Brassaï](http://www.houkgallery.com/artists/brassai/). Through his gorgeous black-and-white portraits of Parisians in cafes, gardens and dance halls, Brassaï defined, and continues to define, an ideal of the City of Light that has lasted for generations. Countless people around the globe — when they think of the Paris of the 1930s and 1940s — envision the great, ancient city as Brassaï captured it through his artful lens. On the Eiffel Tower’s 125th birthday — the grand emblem of the French capital opened on March 31, 1889 — LIFE.com presents a handful of pictures from a wonderful new book, [**_Brassaï: For the Love of Paris_**](http://www.amazon.com/Brassai-For-Love-Paris/dp/2080201689) (Flammarion). As the mayor of Paris, [Bertrand Delanoë](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/760474/Bertrand-Delanoe) writes in his foreword to the book: “My heartfelt wish is that those who view these photographs lose themselves for a time in a Paris of chance encounters, made more loving, more alive than ever by Brassaï’s inquiring eye.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.  The Eiffel Tower, 1932. © 2013, Brassaï Estate  In the Bistro, c. 1930–32. © 2013, Brassaï Estate  Hotel, Boulevard de Clichy, c. 1930–32. © 2013, Brassaï Estate  Montmartre, 1932. © 2013, Brassaï Estate  Nighttime at Longchamp, 1937. © 2013, Brassaï Estate  Brassaï in his photo lab, 1932. © 2013, Brassaï Estate ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3879469/brassai-and-paris-classic-photos-of-the-city-of-light/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3879469/brassai-and-paris-classic-photos-of-the-city-of-light/"},"headline":"Brassaï in Paris: A Photographer's Love Letter to the City of Light","datePublished":"2014-03-27T18:58:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:03:45.056Z","description":"On the 125th anniversary of the opening of the Eiffel Tower -- that grand, graceful emblem of Paris -- LIFE.com presents a handful of pictures from a new book, 'Brassaï: For the Love of Paris.'","url":"https://time.com/3879469/brassai-and-paris-classic-photos-of-the-city-of-light/","keywords":["Culture","France","paris","Ben Cosgrove","Liz Ronk","Eiffel Tower"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bbaa747be919f66/69884b6f8e06014e42460003/140304-brassai-paris-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Liz Ronk","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/liz-ronk/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0bbaa747be919f66/69884b6f8e06014e42460003/140304-brassai-paris-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The Eiffel Tower, 1932","caption":"The Eiffel Tower, 1932","creditText":"© 2013, Brassaï Estate","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/culture/","name":"Culture"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3879469/brassai-and-paris-classic-photos-of-the-city-of-light/","name":"Brassaï in Paris: A Photographer's Love Letter to the City of Light"}}]}] ```