Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer who was known for his influential and controversial work in fashion, portrait, and nude photography. He was born in Berlin in 1920 to a Jewish family and began his career as an apprentice to the photographer Yva. He fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and eventually settled in Australia, where he became a citizen and changed his name to Newton. He married actress June Browne in 1948, who later became a photographer under the name Alice Springs. Newton established himself as a leading fashion photographer in the 1950s and 1960s, working for magazines such as Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Elle, and Queen. He moved to Paris in 1961 and developed his distinctive style of provocative, erotically charged, and often humorous images of women. He challenged the conventions of fashion photography by portraying women as powerful, confident, and dominant, often in fetishistic or surreal scenarios. He also photographed celebrities, artists, and politicians, such as Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Margaret Thatcher, and Adolf Hitler's former mistress Eva Braun. Newton's work was widely exhibited and published in books such as White Women (1976), Sleepless Nights (1978), Big Nudes (1981), and Sumo (1999), a massive volume that weighed 30 kilograms and came with its own stand. He also directed several films and documentaries about his life and work. He received numerous awards and honors, including the Grand Prix National de la Photographie in France in 1990 and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1992. Newton died in 2004 at the age of 83 in Los Angeles, after suffering a heart attack while driving his car. He was buried in Berlin, next to his parents' graves. His work remains influential and controversial to this day, admired for its artistic vision and criticized for its objectification of women.