9/25/2023 0 Comments Helmut newton girl with a gunI'm a gun for hire.” Despite the laundry list of museums and galleries that have featured his work, Newton refused to define his work as “art”. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or a museum, that's fine. To quote Newton referring to his own photographs, "Some people's photography is an art. With a new major exhibition Helmut Newton – A Retrospective set to run at Foam, Amsterdam, from June 17 to September 4, we give you an authoritative education on the prolific image maker. With work published in Nova, Queen, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Elle and Playboy plus 64 covers for Vogue Paris under his belt, Newton’s famed oeuvre ranges from powerful nude women, who radiate a sense of eroticism and empowerment, to black-and-white portraiture of figures that range from Margaret Thatcher to David Bowie, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sophia Loren. With elements of his work that linked to the themes of surrealism – an art movement dominant during his youth spent growing up in Berlin – Newton’s unadulterated love of beautiful and strong women saw him create images laden with heavy overtones of voyeurism, sadomasochism and fetishism. Hired by French Vogue in the 1950s before being propelled to fame in the 1970s, Newton came to be renowned for his controversial scenarios, hypersexualised imagery and striking compositions. 9).Nobody has made quite the lasting impression on fashion imagery as Helmut Newton. So Newton awakens desire, he gives the spectator an appetite for a good story ’ (Marshall Blonsky, ‘What Newton’s “Pornography” Means’, p. He starts imagination – the spectator is left with desire to pursue the narrative, complete the scenario. ‘ It seemed Newton was able to catch a moment of a reality about to happen. The monumental scale of the print further emphasizes the underlying drama and the model’s commanding, Amazonian qualities. The male figure in the background, ominously cloaked in an overcoat, peers through dark glasses over the shoulder of the central femme fatale-a reminder of the ambiguity of the viewer’s own voyeurism. She is an imagined character in a storyline shared by photographer and viewer, a titillating snapshot from a choose-your-own-adventure narrative. This image hails from a later period of Newton’s output, more distanced from work with commercial or editorial undertones and imbued with rich performativity. The subject of Panoramic Nude, Woman with Gun, Villa d'Este, Como, 1989 wears a discreet veil across her face, complete with oversize cat-eyed sunglasses, sleek dark hair and pointed pumps. The year after this image was taken, Max magazine came out with a calendar, and included the image in the current lot as the month of March. 60 x 20 in.) It is not known if all four images, were, in fact, realized in their originally intended editions. All four were published in 1992 in the book Archives de Nuit, and were intended to be printed in an edition of 10 (at a smaller size, about 22 x 8 in.) and an edition of 3 (approx. It was a favored location for Newton, having shot there in 1975 and again in 1980. This photoshoot was originally commissioned in 1989 for Max magazine, an Italian glossy, and Newton chose the Hotel Villa d’Este for its spectacular 16th-century architecture, beautifully preserved and still accessible in Lake Como. Architectural in pose, her towering contrapposto is complemented by the classical steps beneath her and echoed by the lofty palm trees behind her. The subject of Panoramic Nude, Woman with Gun, Villa d'Este, Como, 1989 finds herself in a fraught, beatific scene, armed with a pistol while ascending the steps of an Italian villa, tensed and poised for action. “My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.”- Helmut NewtonĮrotic and resplendent in stature, Helmut Newton’s nudes are subjects of desire and sovereign agents, boldly exploring the fantastical milieus that Newton constructs.
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