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helmut newton. he has fundamentally changed the terms of the fashion image .................................................................................................................
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remembering helmut newton (1920-2004) |
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--- newton, 83, was pulling out of a parking lot at the chateau marmont hotel just off sunset boulevard in los angeles at about noon when he lost control of the cadillac he was driving and crashed into a wall. newton has always been very much more than a fashion photographer - he has fundamentally changed the terms of the fashion image. take yves saint laurent's 'le smoking'. when, in 1966, saint laurent sent out a model in a man's suit, with the aim of freeing women from the trappings of feminine, frilly dresses, he caused an almighty scandal. his aesthetic was branded 'porno chic'. to radical feminists, helmut newton was the antichrist - his work outraged many and they protested one of his exhibits by throwing paint on his photos. 'in my vocabulary, ART is a dirty word,' he said, but it can be assumed that the spirit of helmut newton's work has sympathised with the movement of the surrealists. he portraited amazonian women who live, sleep and breathe in immaculate make-up, heavy jewellery and vicious stiletto heels, gorgeous women, expensive gowns, and exotic locations - to create a unique imaginative world. his pictures are showing members from the margins of society engaged in fetish driven meetings with the social elite, surrounded by sumptuous hotels and ancient midnight streets, all of them saturated with decadence, luxury, and privilege. the magic of his art is its complete elusiveness, its cunning refusal to admit the true nature of its subject matter: the failure of reality and the triumph of desire. helmut newton published his first book 'white women' in 1976, which featured the most radical selections from this period. newton reintroduce elements of violence (or the implied threat of danger) by featuring semi-nude, highly germanic, intensely voluptuous models photographed from the rear holding pistols discreetly hidden from their beaus behind their backs. knives or other instruments of carnage are held in reserve by delicious femmes fatales for moments of ostensible tenderness - and blindly trusting intimacy - with unsuspecting men ripe for the kill. newton was inspired by novels of chandler and spillane, of which he was a great admirer. men in his photos typically appeared in servile roles, as waiters, chauffeurs or mere onlookers. the familiar backdrops of europe's grandest hotels, hollywood apartments, and riviera swimming pools are the settings for a series of mysterious dramas, whose sources are never exposed and whose conflicts are never resolved. admittedly color blind, he once joked that his difficulty distinguishing yellow from green and green from blue was 'why I take very good color pictures'. 'I like the colors to be strong. I tell my printer that I want the photograph to look like a postcard, the sky’s got to be blue. the grass has got to be green'. ---  see the designboom interview with helmut newton and a short biography --- --- more info on helmut newton http://www.galleriacarlasozzani.org ---  ------- monthly designboom newsletter ------- ------- ? comments and contact us ? ------- |
 helmut newton © alice springs courtesy galleria carla sozzani  saddle I, for vogue homme, paris, 1976 © helmut newton courtesy galleria carla sozzani  rue aubriot, for french vogue, paris, 1975 © helmut newton courtesy galleria carla sozzani  big nude III , paris, 1980 © helmut newton courtesy galleria carla sozzani  sylvia in my studio, paris, 1981 © helmut newton courtesy galleria carla sozzan  fat hand with dollars, monte carlo, 1986 © helmut newton courtesy galleria carla sozzani  private property, new york, 1992 © helmut newton courtesy galleria carla sozzani  domestic nude I, hollywood, 1992 © helmut newton courtesy galleria carla sozzani |
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