Starting his art career in 1930, Brassai took photo- graphs of architecture, prostitutes, opium addicts, lovers (both homosexual and heterosexual), street hoodlums, and performers.  His most famous collection is entitled Paris by Night (1933); however, this photograph was published later in 1976 in The Secret Paris of the 30’s.

Standing in a French nightclub, called the bals- musette, this prostitute represents a lower class woman of the 1930s.  To capture the emotion and aggressiveness of the prostitute, Brassai uses light, a mysterious stare, and the symmetry of the surrounding room.  In this photograph, Brassai depicts another intense moment in the everyday lives of Parisians that we see in all of his works.