Photo: left, Alice Springs; right, Helmut Newton — Catherine Deneuve
Us and Them is an ode to collaboration and art. This collection of photographs by Helmut Newton and his wife, actress and photographer June Newton, who worked under the pseudonym Alice Springs, was first published in 1999.
The collection consists of five parts, alternating between Newton’s and Springs’s photography in the tender, private world of Us, and the glamorous encounters of their social and professional circle — Them.
The Us sections of the book reveal portraits of one another and of themselves, striking in their moments of vulnerability and infectious in moments of joy. We see the couple pensive, tired or roaring with laughter. Alice photographs Helmut on set with his models, in the shower and in stilettos. Helmut portrays Alice in the kitchen, in costume and hanging out the laundry while nude.
As the book unfolds, we are shown the vulnerabilities and intimacies of a long relationship that existed alongside the vast world of glamour for which Newton is known. The photographs’ remarkable power shows that attraction and beauty can be found just as readily in an ageing, ailing partner—Helmut in hospital, Alice having her glasses adjusted—as in the immaculate bodies at a Newton fashion shoot.
In the final Them section, Newton and Springs take turns presenting their photographs of the same, typically famous subjects, including Catherine Deneuve, Charlotte Rampling, David Hockney, Dennis Hopper, Karl Lagerfeld and Timothy Leary. Newton depicts them with stately allure, while Springs takes a softer approach that is more suggestive, delicate or playful.
Moving through youth and old age, love and sex, the public and the private, Us and Them offers not only an elegant example of independent visions within a shared life, but also a tender and inspiring chronicle of enduring love.
Translation: Gertruud de Smit
Us and Them - Helmut Newton and Alice Springs
Pages: 368
Price: €50.85
Publisher: Taschen/Librero
