Helmut Newton and his photography are hard to grasp. Most of us think we know his work, or at least important aspects of it. But the German-Australian photographer has left us such an influential and iconic oeuvre that any systematic analysis must fail if one wants to make even the slightest claim to completeness. Newton worked almost exclusively on commission, for magazines, fashion designers and other clients, and over the decades he probably created the most published photographic oeuvre ever. It is both contemporary and timeless, disturbing and enchanting us to this day. It therefore makes sense to take an exemplary approach to Newton's oeuvre in order to examine how Newton staged his work.
This is now happening again in the exhibition at the Philharmonie Stettin. On the one hand, there are
almost 40 vintage exhibition posters by Helmut Newton, which have since become sought-after collector's items and are traded for high prices on the art market – and on the other, a
dozen portraits of musicians.
The framed vintage posters each represent an exhibition by Helmut Newton, who
first presented his fashion photographs to the public in 1975 at the Canon Gallery in Amsterdam and since 1976 also in commercial galleries. In the 1980s, the first museums also invited Newton to solo exhibitions of his photographs. By then, he had long since reached the peak of his career, and his fame as one of the most important photographers of all time increased even further in the following years. The selection of exhibition posters from
Paris, Venice, Milan, Tokyo, Turin, New York, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Vienna, London, Salzburg and Berlin exemplifies his unrivalled work and the restless life of this cosmopolitan. The poster motifs characterise the three main genres in his work: fashion, nudes and portraits, some of which are iconic images. Since the establishment of his Berlin foundation, similar posters have also hung in the permanent exhibition on the ground floor of the museum in several rows one above the other on a long exhibition wall, which in turn is a favourite photo motif for the many visitors. In the large Helmut Newton presentation ‘Fact & Fiction’ in La Coruña last year, a selection of vintage posters also formed the entrée to the actual exhibition.
In Szczecin, the exhibition posters are now accompanied by
portraits of various musicians – and refer to the content of this special exhibition venue, the four-storey Philharmonie, designed by architects Alberto Veiga and Fabrizio Barozzi, which was awarded the Mies van der Rohe Prize and opened in 2014.
Musicians are sometimes incredible performers, on and off the stage, such as
Mick Jagger or David Bowie, who Helmut Newton has portrayed several times – and who hang in this exhibition. In addition, there are vintage and exhibition prints in which we discover other well-known musicians, such as the Italian opera singer
Luciano Pavarotti, in a dinner jacket and highly concentrated, photographed in 1993 in Monte Carlo for ‘Vanity Fair’, immediately before he leaves the dressing room for the stage. Such a portrait, or rather the opportunity to take such an intimate shot, testifies to a deep trust in the photographer. In the exhibition, we also encounter the British pop singer Sting in Milan. Newton portrayed him in a dark, double-breasted suit and white shirt collar, lying on a hotel bed with a clarinet next to him; this musical accessory is a little surprising, as he is known to primarily play the bass. Other exhibition prints by Newton show us the singers
Juliette Gréco, June Anderson and Carla Bruni as well as the musicians
David Lee Roth, Malcolm McLaren, and Willy de Ville. Newton gave each of them his or her individuality, while at the same time always managing to bring out something particularly characteristic of each personality.
Every portrait by Helmut Newton tells a complex, condensed story. The musician portrait has become an important sub-genre, especially as countless portraits are created for the many magazines to satisfy the visual hunger of fans. Newton photographed frequently, but not exclusively, for the magazines published by Condé Nast, including ‘Vanity Fair’, where many of his portraits were published, as well as in ‘Egoïste’ magazine and ‘The New Yorker’. If one analyses his portraits numerically, Newton was more interested in actors and actresses than in musicians, but he also created many masterpieces in this artistic field – which we can now discover the Szczecin exhibition in the Level 4 Gallery.
Dr. Matthias Harder – Director and Curator of the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin
