Above image: Celia, Miami, 1991 © The Helmut Newton Estate/Maconochie Photography

Several weeks ago, before the upending events of this month unfolded, a new gallery opened its doors in west Sussex with an inaugural exhibition of Helmut Newton’s photography. Despite being forced to close its doors shortly after, Newlands House is launching a digital iteration of the exhibition, which spans Newton’s portraiture, fashion editorials, still lifes and landscape photography.

Born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1920, Newton, whose original family name is Neustädter, was drawn to photography from the beginning. Taking pictures of Berlin at night, his mother and his girlfriends, he immersed himself within the city’s underground scene, befriending the likes of Brassaï and Erich Salomon before an apprenticeship with the society photographer, Yva.

Following the events of Kristallnacht in 1938 however, Newton was forced to leave his homeland aged eighteen. Arriving first in Singapore, he and his family traveled to Australia soon after where Newton would remain for the next twenty years, setting up his eponymous studio in Melbourne after the war. With stylised, overtly sexual and often sadomasochistic imagery, Newton’s reputation as one of the most innovative photographers in fashion steadily grew in London and Paris, as Playboy and Vogue soon beckoned.

Favouring to shoot on location rather than in a studio, his black and white photographs were unlike anything that had come before in the world of fashion. Helmut’s images tended to subvert the clothes they depicted, as though he were secretly mocking what he deemed superficial and grotesque. In one memorable collection of images for example, referred to as his X-Ray series, Newton took the meaning of surface-level beauty to a new level by adorning models with a small fortune worth of jewelry only to have a radiologist take their photograph, rendering the jewels barely visible.

Some claim Newton’s images degraded women, taking fashion photography to the point of pornography, while others claim his eye for the shocking and salacious foreshadowed the industry’s visual gravitation towards sex, wealth and nudity. With Newlands House digital walkthrough of their twelve room exhibition, you can decide for yourself. Featuring significant masterpieces and rare prints, the digital program will also include short interviews with friends of Newton as well as discussions with invited guests, including Mary McCartney and Juergen Teller.

INSIDE HELMUT NEWTON 100 commences on Newlands House Facebook and Instagram channels on Thursday 30th April 2020.