#Helmut newton white women series#

When asked what people he liked to photograph, he replied: ‘Those I love, those I admire and those I hate.’ĥ. Newton is also revered for his use of recurring motifs, including mannequins, monocles, mirrors, doors and pools.

#Helmut newton white women series#

He also wanted to see how $3 million worth of diamonds looked under X-ray - the diamonds, he discovered, disappeared completely, leaving only the metal settings.ĭuring the 1980s, Newton completed his now internationally renowned ‘Naked & Dressed’ series, which he later described as the most technically difficult series of pictures he ever produced. ‘This was a fashion picture that, in the undressed version, becomes a quintessentially Newton picture,’ says Quinn.įor the ‘X-ray’ series for Van Cleef & Arpels, Newton led a string of models to a radiologist to see ‘what was going on under all the flesh’. ‘In doing so, he earned himself a reputation as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century.’Īmong Newton’s roster of iconic images for French Vogue is the 1975 campaign for Yves Saint Laurent’s tuxedo nicknamed ‘Le Smoking’, which depicts an androgynous woman with slicked-back hair in a dimly lit Parisian alley. With his controversial scenarios, hyper-sexualised imagery and models who combined beauty, eroticism and strength, ‘Newton subverted the traditional conventions of fashion photography’, explains Christie’s specialist Jude Quinn. It was during his 25-year collaboration with Paris Vogue that Newton firmly established his international reputation and defined his signature style: highly stylised and erotically charged black-and-white photographs that embraced elements of glamour, fashion, erotica, portraiture and documentary, while flirting with provocative themes such as voyeurism. Newton ‘subverted the traditional conventions of fashion photography’ From Australia, the couple moved to London for a short period, before in 1961 settling in the fashionable Marais district of Paris. In Australia, Newton served five years with the Australian army and met his wife June Brunell, also a photographer, who later took up the name Alice Springs. There he worked briefly for The Straits Times, before leaving for Melbourne in 1940. In 1938, with Jews facing increasing hostility in Germany, Newton’s parents moved to South America, while Helmut set sail for China, disembarking en route in Singapore. He arrived at Paris Vogue via Singapore, Australia and London