"Some people's photography is an art. Not mine.Art is a dirty word in photography.- Helmut Newton.
All this fine art crap is killing it already."
"The point of my photography has always been to challenge myself, to go a little further than my Germanic discipline and Teutonic nature would traditionally permit me to."
- Helmut Newton.
Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was one of the most influential photographers of all time. Born in Berlin, he arrived in Australia in 1940 and married June Brunell (a.k.a. Alice Springs) eight years later.
He first achieved international fame in the 1970's while working principally for French Vogue, and his celebrity and influence grew over the decades. Newton preferred to shoot in streets or interiors, rather than studios. Controversial scenarios, bold lighting, and striking compositions came to form his signature look. Newton always demonstrated a healthy disdain for easy or predictable solutions.
In 1990 he was awarded the Grand Prix National for photography; in 1992 the German government awarded him Das Grosse Verdienstkreuz for services to German culture, and he was appointed Officer des Arts, Lettres et Sciences by S.A.S. Princess Caroline of Monaco.
In 1996, he was appointed Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French Minister of Culture at the time.
Following his death in January 2004, Helmut Newton’s position as one of the world’s most celebrated and distinguished fashion photographers is assured. For many, however, he was much more than that. His controversial and innovative portraiture broke down taboos, documenting and shaping society’s changing attitudes to sex and female empowerment. Indeed author JG Ballard has argued that Newton was in fact nothing less than ‘the world’s greatest visual artist’. His images remain as distinctive, seductive and original as ever.
www.helmutnewton.com
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