Helmut Newton: White Women/ Sleepless Nights/ Big Nudes

Helmut Newton and his Foundation

Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton’s photographic work was the subject of controvery throughout his creative life. He achieved fame with his life-sized images of clothed and unclothed women — if not before — with which he succeeded in pushing the boundaries of the prevailing taboos. His fashion and nude images also reflected the changing role of women in society in countless magazine appearances. For over more than a half century, Helmut Newton created iconic images that have had an immense influence on modern and contemporary art and photography.
In October 2003, a few months before his death, Helmut Newton established the Berlin foundation that bears his name – in partnership with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation – dedicated to the study, conservation and exhibition of his photographic work and that of his wife June (alias Alice Springs). Housed in a stately historic building in the centre of Berlin, the Helmut Newton Foundation was intended by its founder to be a ‘living institution’. Newton’s both provocative and trendsetting images are set in dialogue with the work of such colleagues as David LaChapelle, James Nachtwey, Larry Clark and Ralph Gibson.
Since the summer of 2004, all facets of Newton’s innovative photography have been presented here. The current exhibition, White Women / Sleepless Nights / Big Nudes, centres on motifs from his first three books, the first of which appeared in 1976, and some of which continue to be reprinted even today. This is indeed unique in the history of photography.