Image: Heide Museum of Modern Art, BULLEEN
Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen will open 'Brassaï: Secret Paris' on 25 July 2026, presenting what the museum describes as the most comprehensive survey of the Hungarian-born, French photographer ever shown in Australia. The exhibition runs through 15 November in the Heide Main Galleries and brings together more than 150 vintage prints produced in collaboration with the artist’s estate.
The show focuses on Brassaï’s celebrated images of Paris and its people by day and by night. According to the museum, the survey will trace the photographer’s interest in the city’s atmosphere and social life, while also highlighting his hallmark photographs of graffiti. The exhibition is framed as a visual journey into Paris in the 1930s, a period that defined much of Brassaï’s reputation.
'Brassaï: Secret Paris' will also examine the photographer’s artistic and social connections in the Parisian avant-garde. Heide says the presentation considers Brassaï’s friendship with Picasso and other leading figures of the era, as well as his experiments with Surrealism. The exhibition’s scope places the photographer not only as a chronicler of urban life, but as an artist working in dialogue with some of the most influential circles in interwar Paris.
The new exhibition forms part of a busy 2026 program at Heide. The museum is currently mounting 'John Perceval: All That We Are' in the Heide Main Galleries until 12 July, 'Always Modern: Radical Nurture' at Heide Cottage until 13 September, 'Crichton, Tucker, Whiteley: The Chelsea Hotel Years 1967–69' in the Albert & Barbara Tucker Gallery until 16 August, and 'Badra Aji: Get the boy a dog and call it a day' in the Kerry Gardner & Andrew Myer Project Gallery until 16 August. Another exhibition, 'Watch These Hands', opens on 4 July at Heide Modern and runs to 25 October.
Within that sequence, 'Brassaï: Secret Paris' extends Heide’s emphasis on modern and contemporary art history through a major photography survey. The exhibition is presented in the museum’s main galleries and is included with museum admission. Heide lists the curators as Emmanuelle de l’Ecotais, Lesley Harding and Philippe Ribeyrolles.
Heide’s exhibition text says the project will foreground Brassaï’s iconic urban images and his place within Paris’s avant-garde, while the collaboration with the artist’s estate underscores the depth of the material assembled for the show. The museum also notes that the survey will include the photographer’s work from the 1930s, offering visitors access to vintage prints that rarely appear together on this scale in Australia.
