In pictures: The work of photographer Helmut Newton ignites the Riviera with his audacious series

Until November 13, 2022, the National Museum of Monaco – Villa Sauber is devoting an exhibition to the work of photographer Helmut Newton (1920-2004): “Newton, Riviera”.

Based on a geographical territory ranging from the Cote d'Azur to Italy (the Australian artist of German origin lived in Monaco from 1981 to 2004), this retrospective is divided into eight themed rooms: "Swimming pools/Mediterranean", “Ramatuelle”, “Cannes Festival”, “Portraits”, “Fashion & Nudes”, “Private Collections”, “Ballets de Monte-Carlo”, and “Curiosa”.

The opportunity for

to return to the life and work of the photographer who revolutionized fashion photography with his stagings and his nudes.

Directed by:

• Until November 13, 2022, the National Museum of Monaco – Villa Sauber is devoting an exhibition to the work of German-born Australian photographer Helmut Newton (1920-2004).

• Helmut Newton was born in Berlin on October 31, 1920 to a German Jewish father and an American mother.

  In 1938, he fled his country alone under the threat of pogroms in Nazi Germany, and took a boat to Asia.

  He stops in Singapore.

• He then migrated to Australia and joined the Australian Army during World War II.

  It was in this country that he met his future wife, June Brunell, an Australian actress who would later also become a photographer under the pseudonym of Alice Springs.

• Passionate about swimming, photography and women, Helmut Newton worked as a freelance photographer after the war, taking fashion photos and series for

  Playboy magazine.

• Convinced of her husband's talent, June sacrifices her acting career for a while to work with Helmut Newton.

  In the early 1960s, the couple moved to Paris in an apartment, then also bought a second home in Ramatuelle.

• He and his wife June stay there every year from June to August.

  Newton takes pictures of visiting friends, but also of June, like the one where she appears naked, clinging to a frail weeping willow one windy night.

• The 1960s and 1970s were the golden age of fashion photography thanks to the invention of ready-to-wear.

  With his original stagings which sometimes destabilize the sector, Helmut Newton becomes a star of photography.

• Star of photography, it is naturally that Newton comes to do the portraits of other stars, whether they come from the world of fashion, cinema, music or contemporary art.

• In 1981, the couple decided to settle in Monaco.

  The period from 1981 to 2004, the year of his death, is probably the most prolific and freest of the photographer's work.

  Here, a reconstruction of Helmut Newton's apartment in Monaco.

• Once settled in Monaco, Newton transformed the whole city into a backdrop for his images: hotels, terraces, underground car parks and even construction sites...

• Newton takes more and more liberties in his fashion photographs, imposing his point of view on his clients, while maintaining this very carefully studied staging which leaves little room for spontaneity.

• In 1981, Helmut Newton released the

  Big Nudes

  series .

  This image (in the center) will also cover the book

  SUMO

  released in 1999 by Taschen, a book that will smash all records for weight (35 kilos), size and redemption value. 

• Copy 1 of

  SUMO

  , signed by more than 100 celebrities appearing in the book, broke the record for the most expensive book of the 20th century, sold at auction in Berlin in 2000 for 620,000 Deutsche Marks.

• The exhibition comprising 280 shots taken by the artist ends with a room bringing together more personal images, such as landscapes captured by this genius of the image.

• Culture

• Slideshow

• Exposure

• monaco

• Nudity

• Photo