Helmut Newton

In the last two decades, Helmut Newton staked out a distinctive place within the field of contemporary photography. Newton became especially famous for his fashion photographs and nudes, which regularly appeared as commissions in major international magazines, such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Harper’s Bazaar, Lui, and Stern. 

From fashion photography to portraiture, from nude studies to eroticism and to the theme of death – Newton’s work seems to encompass an almost baroque abundance of themes, including facets of the mass-media-influenced world of glamour, of dissimulation and staging. His uniqueness was based on his ability to not be blinded by this world, but to illuminate it in a sometimes flattering light, although more often he lit it with a hard, glaring spotlight. His voyeurism is dissecting, his staging shows the world as a field in which each person is attempting to assert him or herself. A world full of beauty, of seduction – qualities that seldom come entirely without purpose.

With the exception of Polaroid photographs, the exhibition encompasses practically all of the photographer’s areas of activity, while some photographs are exhibited publicly for the first time.

The exhibition was curated by Helmut Newton and Rudolf Kicken. Co-Curator: Urs Stahel. A cooperation with the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, the Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop, and the Castello di Rivioli, Turin.