HELMUT NEWTON LEGACY

Always Powerful, Erotic and Provocative

Cover & Above Images: Helmut Newton

BY: Ramona Duoba

Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer and was once described by The New York Times as a “prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications.” The exhibition HELMUT NEWTON. LEGACY opened in October at the Berlin Museum of Photography. The retrospective, originally scheduled to coincide with the photographer’s 100th birthday, was postponed for a year due to the pandemic.

**Jenny Capitain, Pension Florian, Berlin 1977**

**Cindy Crawford, US Vogue, Monte Carlo 1991**

The exhibit chronologically traces the life and visual legacy of the Berlin-born photographer. With 300 works on view, half are displayed for the first time. Helmut Newton Foundation’s curator, Matthias Harder, introduces lesser-known aspects of Newton’s work as well as his unconventional fashion photographs, which span decades and reflect the changing times.

During the 1960s, Newton found style in Paris, as seen in his photographs of the revolutionary fashions designed by André Courrèges. Working for well-known fashion magazines, Newton not only took classic studio shots but also ventured into the streets, where he staged models in protest, as protagonists in a paparazzi story, and more.

In the 1970s, Newton enjoyed boundless creativity while shooting on location – whether by helicopter above the beach in Hawaii or in a Parisian hourly hotel where he included himself in a lingerie campaign through strategically placed mirrors. He repeatedly tested social and moral boundaries, and sometimes he even redefined them. His photos, provocative enough that the British press bestowed on him the moniker “King of Kink.”

Whether it was his iconic celebrity portraits or his groundbreaking fashion shoots, everything conveyed sexual tension and a sense of sexual liberation. He continued to disturb and enchant people with his vision of fashion and femininity until the end of his life. “There is something about the camera,” he wrote in his 2003 autobiography. It can act as a barrier between me and reality.”