Helmut Newton’s Private Property

Helmut Newton

Private Property offers museum visitors an opportunity to gain in-depth insight into Helmut Newton’s dynamic life and photographic work. The unusual presentation, which includes film footage of the photo shoots, cameras, and accessories he equipped his models with – as well as sections of his private library – brings us closer to the photographer and man Newton was. Many of the publications and magazines he worked for (some of them from the 1950s onward), together with numerous posters from his exhibitions, document the development of his extraordinarily successful aesthetic. As a photographer, Helmut Newton never failed to surprise and polarise his public along the blurry boundary between art and commerce. He found kindred creative spirits among the editors of the many magazines he worked with who responded to his unusual visual ideas. The result was not merely a singular, unmistakable, and influential body of work, but one that wide magazine distribution helped to reach millions of people.