![]() ![]() In the first documentary on Newton’s life and work The Bad and the Beautiful released earlier this year, German director Gero von Boehm opted for an interview-heavy format as an opportunity for the women who were voiceless in Newton’s photographs to finally speak and share their viewpoints. His work was a mirror to a society and fashion industry that has changed and evolved ever since, therefore, one could find his depictions of hyper-sexualized beauty standards for women less engaging today as they were perceived at their time. Shortly before his fatal car crash in 2004 at his age of 83, Newton donated approximately one thousand of his works to his native city, and established a foundation in Berlin that has been managing the preservation and presentation of his work even since. Over the course of his career spanning five decades, he would go on to exhibit worldwide and was featured in magazines and numerous monographs. He staged his first solo exhibition in 1975 at the Nikon Gallery in Paris and a year later, his first volume of photographs White Women was published. His artistic talent gained recognition, which allowed him to complete more autonomous projects. His photography exploded into the mainstream in the ‘70s, through partnerships with Yves Saint Laurent and Chanel, but primarily thanks to the striking photographs he produced on commission for French Vogue. “Today, I only take pictures for money or pleasure.” He began producing incendiary and seductive black-and-white series of nudes, or semi-nudes in settings that overturned the prevailing conventions of fashion photography. “The unnecessary work and the frantic competition are finished!” he revealed in Filthy magazine in 1976. Realizing that life is short, his approach to photography greatly changed, and he poured more of himself into his work than ever before. In 1971 Newton suffered a near-fatal heart attack and became hospitalized several times. He was a working photographer gaining popularity through the ‘60s until a hedonistic lifestyle took its toll. It was not until the end of the ‘50s that Newton and June returned to Europe, where he started shooting for British and French Vogue, Elle and Playboy. The two married one year later and were working and living in close companionship for the rest of their lives. In 1947 he met actress June Browne, who was a fellow photographer and successfully shot under the pseudonym Alice Springs. Newton worked on fashion, theatre and industrial photography in the affluent postwar years. Newton set up a studio in fashionable Flinders Lane in Melbourne going into partnership with Henry Talbot. He was interned in Singapore and sent to Australia, where he served in the army for five years, eventually becoming an Australian citizen. His family was forced into exile after fleeing Germany in 1938, landing in Singapore, where Newton found work as a photographer at a local magazine. ![]() June Newton and the Helmut Newton at Hotel Volney, New York, 1982 © June Newton and the Helmut Newton Estate Newton explored all the angles and planes of the female body-his models would not be turned shyly away from a camera-everything was defiantly on display. His models were photographed as strong, triumphant and liberated, and with sole and total command over their bodies. He is criticized for his overly suggestive depiction of women, however he continuously strived for a contemporary female image at a time of gender and sexual liberation. ![]() As a photographer, who straddled the gap between art and commerce, Newton explored the darker side of sexuality and reveled in nudity and erotic fantasies. His works reverberated through fashion, art, and film, and dominated glamorous high-gloss magazines for decades. Helmut Newton overturned the prevailing conventions surrounding both fine art and fashion photography, bringing controversy and conversation to each and in the process innovated a new formula for editorial photography. This year marks the centennial birthday of one of the masters of late twentieth century photography. ![]()
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