Berlin had an indelible influence on Helmut Newton and his photographic work. Many of his iconic images reflect the fascination he had with the city throughout his remarkable career, from 1930 to the 21st century: night owls in ultra-cool clubs, nude portraits in the old Berlin boarding houses of his youth and the Berlin film world.
Born in Berlin in 1920, Helmut Newton was trained as a teenager by the legendary photographer Yva. She led him to the seductive worlds of fashion, portrait photography and nude photography. At only 18, he was forced to flee from the Nazis, but Berlin never let him go.
After his career exploded in Paris in the 1960s, he regularly returned to Berlin to photograph for magazines such as Constanze, Adam, Vogue, Condé Nast's Traveler, ZEITmagazin, Männer Vogue, Max and the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, as well as his own magazine Helmut Newton's Illustrated.
In 1979 the newly relaunched German Vogue invited him to retrace the footsteps of his youth and capture the fashion image of that moment. The resulting portfolio, Berlin, Berlin!, inspired the title of the exhibition celebrating twenty years of the Helmut Newton Foundation.
This collection includes Newton's most iconic images of Berlin, as well as many unknown photographs from the period from 1930 to 2000: night owls in ultra-cool clubs and restaurants, nude portraits in the boarding houses he knew from his youth, and the Berlin film world, including Hanna Schygulla and Wim Wenders at the Berlin Wall, John Malkovich and David Bowie.
In October 2003, just months before his death, Newton moved large parts of his archive to his new foundation, housed in the Museum für Fotografie next to the Zoologischer Garten station—the very station from which he fled Berlin in the winter of 1938. This publication thus closes a circle in the story of his extraordinary life and work.
Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was one of the most influential photographers of all time. He first achieved international fame in the 1970s when he worked mainly for French Vogue, where he became famous for his controversial screenplays. Most striking was his ability to make a well-planned photo seem fresh and dynamic. Below are many titles and awards these: Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Helmut Newton. Berlin, Berlin - Matthias Harder
Pages: 244
Price: €53.99
Publisher: Taschen
