Too Many Naked Women
Helmut Newton was a highly influential photographer best known for his fashion, portraiture, and female nude studies which often had strong erotic stylized themes verging on the fetishistic. “Newton became a regular and major contributor to French Vogue in May 1961 and continued to do his most important fashion work there for the next 25 years. During this period he also worked intensively for American, Italian and German Vogue as well as for Linea Italiana, Queen, Nova, Jardin des Modes, Marie-Claire and Elle.
“Newton’s contribution to the history of 20th century photography lies not merely in his extremely provocative approach but also, and more importantly, in his prescience and intuition, in his ability to imagine and visualize women exactly as they are today, at the dawn of the third millennium: women who take the lead rather than follow it; women who love and desire whenever and whomever they like, and in whatever way they like; women full of health and vigor, enjoying the resplendence and vitality of their sinewy bodies, bodies over which they themselves have sole command; women who are both responsible and willing.
Anticipating the sexual revolution which came with the advent of the birth-control pill, the women of Helmut Newton’s world are women who know and get what they want; they are far removed from the weak, compliant sex-object dominated by the misogynist macho. And this is the reason why Newton’s work has been found so shocking, for his staged photos thematize the discovery of this new kind of freedom and the fantasies which this freedom engenders.”
In 1995 Helmut told Salon Magazine, “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,” he says, as he walks by blow-ups from the “Big Nudes” series which line his office. “The nudes and bondage shots were my way of going beyond my own bounds. Now that I’ve done that, I want to return to fashion with a fresh and mature eye and do more portraits.
His hobby was buying motor cars he could not afford.
Below are several examples of his work.
Read the rest of this entry »
