Though he did not take up photography until after the author’s death, Brassaï arguably bears the strongest connection to Proust of any artist featured in this exhibition. A Hungarian transplant to Paris in 1924, Brassaï began to teach himself the French language by reading the works of Proust. 

In his book, Proust in the Power of Photography, which partially inspired the present exhibition, Brassaï argues, “…in his battle against Time, that enemy of our precarious existence, ever on the offensive though never openly so, it was in photography, also born of an age-old longing to halt the moment, to wrest it from the flux of “durée” in order to “fix” it forever in a semblance of eternity, that Proust found his best ally.” This image of a tenebrous tombstone-laden plot of Montmartre Cemetery evokes the ultimate futility of the artist’s attempt to salvage a moribund existence.

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Brassaï (French, 1899-1984)
Le cimetière Montmartre, 1932
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Richard and Ronay Menschel Fund for the Acquisition of Photographs, P2000.70