About Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton, born Helmut Neustädter (31 October 1920, Berlin, Germany – 23 January 2004, West Hollywood, California, USA) was a German-Australian fashion photographer. He is best know for his nude studies of women and particular the depiction of big, strong women in high heels. The Big Nude Series and the tandem series “Sie Kommen / They are Coming / Dressed and Undressed” are arguably his best know works.

Helmut Newton was born in Berlin. His father was a German-Jewish button factory owner while his mother was American. Newton attended the Heinrich-von-Treitschke-Realgymnasium and the American School in Berlin. At the age of twelve he purchased his first camera and became interested in photography. His work started with German Photographer Yva (Else Neulander Simon) in 1936. In the years that followed the war placed a heavy burden on his family with their jewish background. Soon after the Nuremberg laws were introduced, his father lost control of his factory and was briefly interned in a concentration camp. Immediatel after Kristallnacht (November 9th 1938), Newton’s parent fled to Chile to avoid the Nazi regime. Helmut Newton left Germany on December 5th 1938 and boarded the Conte Rosso in an attempt to go to China. After he arrived in Singapore he became a reporter for the Straits Times and worked as a portrait photographer. While in Singapore, Newton was sent to Australia on board the Queen Mary by British authorites. He arrived in Sydney on September 27th 1940. After being interned at Victoria for some time he worked as a fruitpicker and enlisted with the Australian Army and worked as a truck driver in 1942.

After the war, Helmut became an Australian citizen and changed his name to Newton. He married actress June Browne (stage-name ‘June Brunell’) in 1948. June Newton later had her own photography career under the name Alice Springs. June Newton recently released a short film on Helmut titled “Helmut by June” released in 2007 by HBO Documentaries.

In 1946 Helmut Newton increasingly focused on fashion photography. Together with Wolfgang Sievers he opened his first joint exhibition in 1953. The exhibition entitled ‘New Visions in Photography’ was shown at the Federal Hotel in Collins Street Australia. He then went into partnership with Henry Talbot and continued his association Tatura even after 1957 when he left Australia for London.

In January 1956 Helmut Newton landed his first major commission with a photography contract for a special Australian supplement for Vogue magazine. After working for British Vogue for over a year, he left for London in February 1957 but terminated his contract with the magazine and went to Paris to work for various French and German magazines. He returned to Melbourne in to work for Australian Vogue in March 1959. After two year, Helmut Newton decided to stay in Paris to continue his work as a fashion photographer. His works appeared in various magazines including French Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and he gradually gained a reputation for his stylized scene-based photography which was often erotic and even sado-masochistic in nature. Helmut Newton himself described his work as “scenes out of every day life” in the movie “Helmut by June” which was released in 2007.

In 1970 he suffered from a heart attack which forced him to slow down. During this period he quickly gained more notoriety for his nude photography series. In 1980 the “Big Nudes” series arguably became the most recognizable nude photography of the 20th century. After this period Helmut Newton produced a number of photographs for Playboy Magazine which included photographs of Nastassia Kinski. Many of his nude photographs of this period are highly collectable and have steadily increased in value since his death.

Helmut Newton together with Benedikt Taschen and the first SUMO

In the later years of his career Newton moved to Monte Carlo and Los Angeles. The 2007 documentary by June Newton features some interesting conversations with the photographer at these locations.

In October 2003 Helmut Newton donated a large amount of photographs to what would later become the Helmut Newton Foundation. This foundation now conserves, protects and displays the works of Helmut Newton and Alice Springs in amongst other locations, the Helmut Newton Photography Museum of the Foundation in his hometown Berlin.

Helmut Newton died aged 83 on January 23rd 2004 in Los Angeles in a car accident when he drove into a wall of the driveway of the Chateau Marmont, possibly suffering from a heart attack. This location had been his residence for several years in California. He was cremated and buried next to Marlene Dietrich at the Städtischer Friedhof III in Berlin.

For more information on Helmut Newton please visit his official website by the Helmut Newton Foundation here

This is an interview by Topshop with Tiggy Maconochie, Helmut Newton’s agent for the past 20 years and now the representative of his estate.