Photographs by Helmut Newton: Self-Portrait with Wife and Models from the series Big Nudes – Vogue Studio, Paris 1981 © Helmut Newton Estate
PHOTOGRAPHS BY HELMUT NEWTON: AN EXHIBITION IN VENICE
Photographs by Helmut Newton. From April 7th to August 7th 2016, the exhibition “Photographs by Helmut Newton” will show, for the first time in Venice, over 200 photos by Helmut Newton, one of the most important and celebrated photographers in the 20th century.
The exhibition is the result of a project, launched in 2011 by June Newton, the widow of the great photographer, and features images taken from White Women, Sleepless Nights, and Big Nudes, the first three books published and edited by the author himself in the late 1970s.
Photographs by Helmut Newton: French Vogue from the series White Women, Melbourne 1973 © Helmut Newton Estate
These books are now considered legendary.
In selecting the photographs, Newton puts in sequence the shots made for patrons with those freely made for himself, building a narrative in which the search for style mix together with his personal search.
White Women
In White Women, published in 1976, Newton chose 81 images, introducing for the first time nude and eroticism in fashion photography.
For these photos he drew inspiration from history of art, especially from the “Maya desnuda” (“Nude Maya”) and the “Maya vestida” (“Clothed Maya”) by Goya, housed at the Prado Museum in Madrid.
Sleepless Nights
Women, their bodies and their clothes are still the protagonists of Sleepless Nights, published in 1978. It is a multi-volume retrospective containing 69 photographs taken for several magazines, such as Vogue, for example, in which Newton defines his style that made him an icon of fashion photography.
Big Nudes
With this book of 1981, Newton became a protagonist of the history of the image of the second half of the 20th century.
The 39 black-and-white shots of Big Nudes inaugurated a new dimension of human photograph: that of the giant portraits which, from that moment on, entered galleries and museums all over the world.
Newton’s provocation launched with the introduction of nude in the fashion photography deeply influenced other photographers and filmmakers, and is the symbol not only of his artistic production, but also of a new way to consider photography.
See kommen from the series Big Nudes. Paris 1981 © Helmut Newton Estate
Photographs by Helmut Newton: Rue Aubriot from the series White Women Paris 1975 © Helmut Newton Estate
Photographs by Helmut Newton: Bergstrom over Paris from the series Sleepless Nights, 1976 © Helmut Newton Estate
INFO
HELMUT NEWTON Fotografie WHITE WOMEN / SLEEPLESS NIGHTS / BIG NUDES
07.04 > 07.08.2016
Venice / Casa dei Tre Oci