Helmut and June Newton's Legendary Joint Project
A fifty-five-year history of life and love
This is a photographic love story tracing the fifty-five years of collaboration, partnership and history of Helmut and June Newton. First published in 1998, their legendary joint project Us and Them was presented in book form and accompanying exhibitions.
The book‘s first part – Us – features personal portraits of each other and self-portraits taken over several decades, revealing affection and intimacy behind each image and bringing forth nostalgia of the time. It is a photographic diary that records the life Helmut and June Newton shared away from the public eye.
The second part of the book – Them – is a sumptuous journey through time, where the lens of the master brings forth images of stunning portraits of an array of jet set, celebrities, important cultural figures, and some of the most famous faces of the time. From Catherine Deneuve, Anjelica Huston, David Hockney, and Timothy Leary to Peter Beard, Yves Saint Laurent, Thierry Mugler, Jane Birkin, and Charlotte Rampling, among others. The portraits taken by Helmut and June Newton in various sittings are presented side by side in pairs, thus revealing two facets of the same personality. This volume unmistakably highlights that the life and work of Helmut and June Newton were inexplicably linked in every way. One was never possible without the other.
"Carte Blanche" for the commissioned works between art and commerce
Helmut Newton did not distinguish compositionally or stylistically between his magazine work and assignments for commercial clients. He ironically referred to himself as “a gun for hire.” That was also the title of June Newton's legendary book about his commercial photography, which is now available in a new edition revised by the Helmut Newton Foundation.
"Some people's photography is an art. Mine is not. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or a museum, that's fine. But that's not why I do them. I'm a gun for hire," Helmut Newton told Newsweek in 2004. This prosaic proclamation from one of the 20th century's most celebrated photographers may be perceived as shocking. Still it firmly positions Newton as the no-frills image-maker that he was. His work is so powerful and striking, that it defies categorization. In refusing to call his work "art," Newton leaves us free to do so. Judging from the amount of museum and gallery shows that have featured his work, it is clear that the option has been widely exercised.
A Gun for Hire brings together a selection of Newton's fashion catalog work from the early 1960s to 2003 including work for BiBA (the first fashion catalog in 1962), Chanel, Yves Saint Laurent, Versace, Thierry Mugler, Blumarine, Villeroy & Boch and Absolut Vodka, as well as his last editorial photographs for US and Italian Vogue—encompassing the body of work he made as a "gun for hire."
With an introduction by Matthias Harder and statements by Pierre Bergé, Tom Ford, Josephine Hart, June Newton, and Anna Wintour.
Helmut Newton (1920-2004) lived and worked all over the world and was one of the most internationally famous and controversial photographers of the 20th century. His shots at haute couture and the beau monde are instantly recognizable, having appeared in virtually every major magazine in Europe and the United States. From his early work for Vogue to his portraits of the rich and famous, Newton conveys a unique vision of a wealthy and glamorous world that often shocks but never ceases to fascinate.
The Photofile series brings together the best work of the world’s greatest photographers, in an affordable pocket format. Handsome and collectable, the books are produced to the highest standards. Each volume contains some sixty full-page reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography. The series has been awarded the first annual prize for distinguished photographic books by the International Center of Photography, New York.
Us and Them is an ode to partnership and art. First published in 1999, it gathers photographs by Helmut Newton and his wife, the actress and photographer June Newton, who worked under the pseudonym Alice Springs. The collection is arranged into five sections, alternating the gaze between Newton and Spring’s own tender internal world of “Us,” and the glamorous encounters of their social and professional milieu—“Them.”
The “Us” sections of the book reveal the pair’s portraits of each other and themselves, as startling in their moments of vulnerability as they are infectious in their episodes of joy. We see the pair pensive, weary, or roaring with laughter. Alice photographs Helmut on set with his models, in the shower, and in stilettos. Helmut captures Alice in the kitchen, in costume, and hanging up the washing in the nude. Along the way, we are alerted to the frailties and intimacies that make up a long-term partnership, which coexisted with the high-voltage glamour for which Newton is renowned. The particular power of the pictures is to locate as much magnetism and beauty in an aging, ailing partner (Helmut in the hospital, Alice adjusting her spectacles), as in the pristine physiques of a Newton fashion shoot.
Polaroids occupy a special place in photography, all the more so since the development of digital techniques. The instant print and absence of editing tools allows these one-of-a kind images a beguiling realness: In no other photographic medium does the moment find its material form with such sincerity and such speed.
Throughout his career, Helmut Newton used polaroids not just for their poetics but as a crucial tool for testing lighting and composition before a shoot began. Many photographers threw these tests away. Luckily for us, Newton kept his, allowing his widow June Newton to assemble this fascinating behind-the-scenes look at some of his greatest shoots, from the classic nudes in Milan to latex-clad shots in St. Tropez.
With images visible folds or handwriting, these snaps from the seventies, eighties, and nineties are akin to the preparatory sketches to masterpiece paintings. Offering fascinating insight into Newton’s creative direction and process, they stand as works of art in their own right, and as a historical testament to a bygone age of fashion photography.
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