Page 146 - BALL42ENG
P. 146
To celebrate the centenary of Helmut Newton (1920-2004) two years late due to the pandemic, this major retrospective produced in partnership with the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin presents the complete work of the famous Berlin photographer through three hundred of his works.
A highly controversial figure, Newton was a provocateur who hated seeing his photographs associated with the words «art» and «good taste». However, he never ceased to captivate with his pictorial signature identifiable at first glance. Published countless times, his photos are inscribed in the collective visual memory.
Renowned for his photos of women, naked or dressed, powerful in haughty pos- tures, sometimes aggressive and always assertive, he loved this dominating force of the so-called weaker sex and never attached himself to photographing the soul to focus only on the body in its mysterious and erotic dimension.
In 1938, Newton fled Nazi Germany for Australia where he began photographing fashion. Newton paved the way for his inimitable style in 1960s Paris by staging his models in theatrical settings outside of the traditional haute couture scene. Playing luxury with eccentricity, he knew how to create strange situations by ma- king elegance rhyme with ambivalence.
Helmut Newton
Prada, Monte Carlo, 1984 © Helmut Newton Foundation
