Helmut Newton, eroticism assumed
« German-Australian photographer (1920-2004), major fashion-photography figure, self-declared provocateur. »
Born Helmut Neustädter in Berlin to a Jewish family, fled in 1938, a long odyssey before settling in Australia. Newton joined Vogue Paris in the 1960s. His Big Nudes (1980-1981), monumental women in stilettos against white, became the trademark of a fashion in which female power was claimed.
His Riviera, his hotels, his locker rooms, his convertibles, his hard light, his recurring motifs (mirror, chair, gun): a cinematic universe recognisable from a single frame, owing as much to Hitchcock as to Bunuel. Charges of objectification, which he embraced to the end: "I'm the son of a button manufacturer."
Married to June Brunell, who photographed as Alice Springs, Newton died in 2004 in a car accident on Sunset Boulevard. The Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, which he had set up just before, holds his archive. His influence on contemporary fashion and advertising remains massive.