Indecent Exposure

Helmut Newton, one of the towering figures in the world of photography, is the subject of a newly released Taschen art book, which has been published to coincide with a large-scale retrospective exhibition at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin. Bruce Scott charts the legacy of the lensman with a little-known connection to Singapore and his lasting influence on fashion and art.

- Bruce Scott

In the world of fashion photography, the late Helmut Newton is an iconic figure. Alongside legends such as Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential, and most imitated photographers of the 20th century. He is perhaps best known for his work with Vogue magazine – spanning the French, German, American, Italian and Russian editions of the publication – although his full oeuvre also encompasses portrait, glamour and art photography. Infamous for his controversial, provocative and often racy subject matter, his “voyeuristic” images playfully reference film noir, Expressionist cinema, Surrealism and even a little S&M.

He was born Helmut Neustädter, the son of Jewish parents, in Berlin on Oct 31, 1920. To commemorate the centenary of his birth, the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin had planned a grand retrospective of his life and work to be unveiled in 2020, but unfortunately the Covid-19 pandemic scuttled those anniversary plans. However, the exhibition, simply entitled Helmut Newton. Legacy, did finally open to the public late last year – fittingly on Oct 31 – and is scheduled to run until May 22, 2022.

Newton’s interest in photography began early on. By the age of 12 he had purchased his first camera, a box Brownie made by Eastman Kodak, and by 16 he was working under the well-known German photographer Yva (Elsie Neuländer Simon). However, just two years later his family made the desperate decision to escape Germany, as the persecution of Jews by Nazi authorities continued to escalate. His parents fled to Argentina, but young Helmut ended up on a ship bound for Singapore, where he settled briefly and worked as a photographer for The Straits Times and then as a portrait photographer.