‘This image is a great example of not only Newton’s fascination with hotel rooms, but also his interest in creating a sense of “reportage” in his work,’ remarks Quinn. In 1973 Newton photographed the actress, who would later become his muse, nude on a dining table in Arles, a glass of wine in hand. Among his most famous sitters for the magazine was Charlotte Rampling. In the early 1970s Newton started working for Playboy - a collaboration that would last for around 30 years. Time magazine dubbed him ‘The King of Kink’ ‘In doing so, he earned himself a reputation as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century.’ĥ. 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 Newton did what he could to keep her memory alive, describing her as ‘a great photographer and an exciting woman’.Ģ. After Newton left Berlin, Yva was deported to a Nazi concentration camp and murdered. Under the German-Jewish photographer, Newton learned to master large-format cameras - 8x10s. At the age of 16, however, it was clear that Newton would not be joining the family-run button factory, and he was apprenticed to the portrait, nude and fashion photographer Else Neuländer Simon, better known as Yva. It was then, he later recalled, that he realised he wanted to become a fashion photographer at Vogue.Īt first, Newton’s father did not encourage his son’s interest in photography.

By the time he was 14, he was working as a photographer’s assistant and frequently skipping school to photograph childhood girlfriends in the streets wearing his mother’s clothes. The eighth was of the radio tower in Berlin. He took his first seven pictures in a subway, which, he later admitted, all came out too dark. Newton got his first camera at the age of 12.

The best of helmut newton