Helmut Newton (born Helmut Neustädter; 31 October 1920 – 23 January 2004) was a German-Australian photographer. He was mainly a fashion photographer whose provocative black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications. Helmut Newton was one of the most important and controversial photographers of the 20th Century. He was primarily known due to the alternative nature of his photographs. Newton’s pictures, whether fashion, nude or portraits, were often highly erotic, bold, and provocative.
He was not famous for a specific photograph exactly, but more for the nature of the photos he took. He was born in an era where women had just gained a new type of freedom within themselves. Women were more independent and Newton, throughout his career, empowered women. He showed their true magnificence and beauty in each of his works. But one of his most known pieces is Sie Kommen (Dressed) and Sie Kommen (Naked) (shown above).
His early studies were at the American School in Berlin; however, by 1936, as his fascination with photography began and his disinterest in school waned, he left school and started an apprenticeship with then renowned photographer Elsie Simon, known as Yva.
Helmut Newton has influenced countless photographers, but his mark of influence also extends beyond photography into fashion, advertising and design. I personally love his work because Newton did not objectify women for his own pleasure, but for their own pleasure instead. He empowered them and showed their true beauty. He depicted their sensuality, their tall, statuesque figures, their womanly curves, their unique personalities. Newton photography presented women as the rule-makers instead of rule-obeying, weak persons.
In the beginning of his career, Newton opened a studio on Flanders Lane, a fashionable street in the textile district of Melbourne, where he began to shoot fashion and theater. It was there that Newton would also see his work in his first exhibition, along with architectural photographer Wolfgang Sievers, who had served alongside Newton in the army.
In 1975 Paris, Newton staged his first one-man exhibition. The following year he published his first book, White Women. Over the next twenty-five years he worked steadily and productively, publishing a series of books and creating countless exhibitions, the most impressive of which was surely the large-scale celebration of his career at the Neue National Galerie in Berlin on the occasion of his eightieth birthday in 2000, accompanied by the simply titled book, Work.
Newton was highly sought after until the end of his life. He died of injuries from a car accident at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, California in 2004. Shortly before his death he had established the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, Germany, and donated approximately one thousand of his works to his native city.
Resources:
http://www.hamiltonsgallery.com/artists/37-helmut-newton/biography/
http://www.widewalls.ch/helmut-newton-photography/sie-kommen-dressed-naked-1981/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Newton
http://fadedandblurred.com/helmut-newton/
http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-385-50807-0