Voyeurist, misogynist, sexist, immoral, fetishist?Helmut Newton's transgressive life, erotic photographer
He climbed his luxurious Cadillac, turned on the engine and gently stepped on the accelerator to get out of the parking lot of the Château Marmont hotel.When he was about to cross the threshold, his car suddenly became a saeta, crossed the street and embedded against the front wall.Milagro did not kill anyone.
Un vulgar accidente de tránsito, del que hoy se cumplen dieciocho años, había terminado con la vida del icónico fotógrafo de celebridades Helmut Newton de 83 años.
The doctors, that January 23, 2004, of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center could not save their lives.
A infarction had stopped the heart of the creator of Chic porn, the particular Glam hunter of vulgarity, the man who had managed to impose his own style to portray women.
It was a death without the disruptive glory to which we were accustomed.But his unique way of seeing reality and unprejudiced and controversial management that he had of eroticism remained in the retina of history.
And, of course, in the archives of the mythical magazines Vogue, Elle, Vanity Fair, Harper’s or Playboy.
No buttons, photos yes
Helmut Newton was born anxious, on October 31, 1920, advanced two months to the planned delivery, such as Helmut Neustädter.His mother, Klara Marquis, was a widow with a son named Hans when he married the peasant of the Silesia region, Max Neustädter.Max took care of the Klara's dead husband and buckles factory and became a prosperous businessman.Helmut arrived in bonanza times and spent his childhood in Berlin without any economic urban. Había dinero y su madre lo tenía siempre de punta en blanco: zapatos de cuero y trajes de terciopelo.Klara, in addition, was demanding with his manners and was very concerned about the codes of label.He was forbidden.
While both parents were Jews, Christmas celebrated and did not practice rites.In fact, neither Hans nor Helmut had their mitzvah bar.Nor were they involved in politics.
En 1932, a los 12 años, Helmut se compró su primera cámara de fotos con sus ahorros: era una Agfa Tengor Box.The first images took them out in a subway, but the roll was completely veiled.He did not take it as a sign that he had to change his destiny, but rather as a proof of his temperance.
Although his father wanted him to work at the button factory, Helmut did not cease his efforts to become a photographer. El adolescente era vago, poco estudioso y solo se mostraba interesado por las chicas, la fotografía y la natación.At age 14 he brought out his rebel side.Challenged the racial laws of Nuremberg of 1934 where it was intended to separate Jewish children from the rest.He fell in love with a girl who was not a Jewish. Años después, cuando le preguntaron por el tema, dijo: “Me daba perfectamente cuenta de lo que hacía, pero me importaba una mierda”.
Su gran pasión por la natación tenía que ver con su obsesión por las mujeres.Practicing swim gave him the opportunity to see the girls "wet for long periods of time".Piletas and women would be a constant in their life of images.
At 16, he convinced his father to let him study photography. Comenzó su formación con la conocida fotógrafa de modas Else Ernestine Neuländer-Simon a quien se conocía como Yva.Of Jewish-German origin, the photographer was highly valued by her permanent innovation.He had even participated in the International Nud for Photography Hall in Paris.He studied with her almost two years.
In 1938 the climate of Germany had thickened. Los nazis tomaron la fábrica de su padre y Helmut pasó una breve estadía en el campo de concentración en Kristallnacht. El susto fue más que suficiente para que la familia tomara en serio lo que ocurría. La amenaza de la SS alemana era permanente.They had to emigrate and so planned.
Yva, on the other hand, preferred to wait in Berlin than things to love.Shortly after she was arrested in her own study and sent to the Majdanek concentration camp where she was killed in December 1944.
Run away from a safe death
El 5 de diciembre de 1938 la familia de Helmut partió rumbo a Sudamérica, más precisamente a la Argentina.He, 18 years old, headed to the opposite side: the Asian continent.His goal was to reach China.He wore two cameras: a kodak and a rolleicord.His train ticket went to Trieste and from there he was supposed to have to take a ship to China. Pero el incorregible Helmut hizo lo que le dio la gana y se bajó en Singapur donde rápidamente consiguió trabajo como fotógrafo en un diario importante: el Singapore Straits Times.His mission was rather frivolous: making images for the society section. Curiosamente su estilo no les gustó nada a los editores del periódico.He was fired two months later without contemplation.
Helmut no se hizo mayores problemas y, mientras pensaba qué iba a hacer, se divirtió teniendo sexo con todas las mujeres que se cruzaron en su camino.
“I realize how far I was still the goal of becoming Vogue's photographer.Instead, I had made a trained clotter, ”he said without filters later.
Sus aventuras sexuales en Singapur terminaron cuando, por su nacionalidad alemana, fue deportado a Australia. Allí fue internado en un campo de refugiados en Tatura, Victoria, donde estuvo hasta 1942. Al salir, se dedicó a recolectar frutas durante varias semanas y, luego, se enroló en el ejército australiano como conductor de camiones.That would do for the next three years.
Name change
Fue después de dejar el ejército que decidió cambiar su apellido: lo transformó en Newton (se nacionalizó australiano y vivió en ese continente durante 17 años) para que sonara más inglés ya que pensaba establecerse en la ciudad de Melbourne. Allí abrió un pequeño estudio de fotografía y comenzó a trabajar para la edición australiana de la revista Vogue.
Por esos tiempos conoció a la actriz y modelo June Browne (una australiana quien se hacía llamar June Brunnell) que estaba dando sus primeros pasos en teatro.She was 24 years old when she arrived at her study with the idea of making a book for her jobs. June se quedó para siempre.A year later, in 1948, they married and she ended up adopting her husband's last name.
En un reportaje con la edición española de Vogue June reveló la mejor definición que Helmut hizo de sí mismo: “Una vez le pregunté si él pensaba que era un genio.He replied: ‘No, I think I have received a crooked gift.I see the world in another way ’.And then he informed me that photography would always be his first love and I the second ".
In 1956 Helmut got a contract for a year to work in the British version of Vogue. Pero en Londres Helmut se aburrió del moralismo británico y terminó su contrato antes de tiempo para irse con June a París. Vivieron un tiempo entre Francia y Australia hasta que, en 1961, se instalaron en un departamento parisino, en el barrio Le Marais.
Comenzó a trabajar con todas las revistas de prestigio y fue en ese tiempo que hizo el retrato de una mujer vestida con un smoking de Yves Saint Laurent.That photo is one of the most famous and is known as Le Smoking.I had already achieved economic security to explore everything I wanted in photography.
A place for June
Se estaba convirtiendo en el célebre fotógrafo del planeta fashion y sus fotos provocativas estaban en todas las publicaciones elegantes de la época.Paradoxically, although he worked for the fashion industry, a large number of his images were naked women. Su estética irrespetuosa con los cánones preconcebidos fue creando su sello distintivo donde la luz dramática y la búsqueda de una mirada erótica diferente gobernaban la escena.
Helmut began to be Helmut.To dry.
Until one day June also came his opportunity.It was in the 70s and thanks to the fact that he fished a strong flu.That week Helmut had an important photographic session for the advertising campaign of the cigarette brand gyps, but was not in a position to do it.June with boldness accepted it.It went wonderfully well.
Fun with the replacement of her husband, together they devised to take an artistic pseudonym so as not to use the Newton. Luego de jugar con un planisferio, el azar terminó apoyando su dedo en un lugar de Australia llamado Alice Springs… Así se bautizaría de ahora en más la June fotógrafa.The world then discovered her gaze, very different from that of her husband, less provocative but more committed. Y ella también pasó a fotografiar a famosos de la talla de Nicole Kidman, Luciano Pavarotti, Karl Lagerfeld o Yves Saint Laurent.
Al año siguiente, Helmut tuvo un infarto estando en Nueva York.It seemed that health would take it out of the scene, but it wasn't. Siguió con su fascinación por la sexualidad femenina con una serie de fotos que incorporaba el lesbianismo, el fetichismo, el sadomasoquismo y otros ismos.I wanted to end the "estas" that believed the safeguard of morals.
He worked hard for magazines for adults like Oui and Playboy, with whom he collaborated for more than thirty years.These works allowed him to get his playful side and explore his fantasies using a subversive aesthetic. Las quejas feministas y las acusaciones de sexismo no lo detuvieron.He maintained, to whom he asked him, who photographed strong, powerful, dominant women.
Skipping all the conventions ended up raising it to the top of the podium of photography and the celebrities of the moment felt that being photographed by him was a real luxury.
In 1976 Helmut published a controversial book, called White Women, in which he showed the life of the prostitutes of Parisina Saint-Denis street. El famoso diseñador de zapatos Manolo Blahnik aseguró que Helmut era el único hombre que fotografiaba mujeres “que parecen mujeres”.
A 35 kilos book
Starting the 80s Helmut and June left Paris. Se instalaron en Mónaco durante los meses de verano y, durante los inviernos europeos, en la ciudad norteamericana de Los Ángeles.Thus life continued as if I were never going to end.Plane by plane, famous in famous, campaign campaign.
In 1999 he published his book Sumo. Como todo lo que hizo era un libro que se salía de la normalidad: pesaba 35 kilos, medía casi un metro y contenía más de 400 imágenes.It was a work of art in itself.Only ten thousand numbered copies were published that were signed by him.He was exhausted right away and today is exposed in several museums in the world.
It was barely published Helmut said: “I just want to read something for the new generations.This book is for them ".
Behind the professional lens of the professional passed, for several decades, the celebrities of the planet. Las top models Cindy Crawford y Claudia Schiffer; las actrices Charlotte Rampling (que posó totalmente desnuda para Playboy), Sofía Loren, Isabella Rossellini y Nastassja Kinski; las cantantes Grace Jones y Madonna y la princesa Carolina de Mónaco. La mismísima Elizabeth Taylor posó para la tapa de uno de sus libros dentro de una pileta, engalanada solo con alhajas.The value of what I had reached a whopping 15 million dollars.
También fotografió a algunos hombres únicos como el pintor Salvador Dalí, el artista Andy Warhol y el actor Nicholas Cage. No faltó la casta política a su cita: el controvertido francés Jean-Marie Le Pen y la primera ministra británica Margaret Thatcher fueron parte de su colección fotográfica. Isabella Rossellini dijo de él: “Que la industria de la moda aceptara a Helmut fue algo extraordinario.He was much more dangerous, much more ambiguous and scary than Richard Avedon ... ". La mítica Anna Wintour, directora de Vogue, opinó: “Si le hacías un encargo era obvio que no ibas a recibir una chica bonita posando en una playa fantástica.That was not its story ".
Helmut and his love for the bizarre, in a bold and voluntary act of "bad taste", took him to photograph in 1994 a ring of diamonds of the Bulgari brand with a vulgar knife and a chicken crossed out.This image cost him threats: the traditional French Maison threatened to lift his advertising campaign from Vogue. Helmut solo dijo: “Amo la vulgaridad.Bad taste is much more exciting than the supposed good taste that is nothing more than a standardized way of looking at things ”. Todo dicho.
On April 6, 2000, the Sumo book that carried the number one and was signed by more than one hundred personalities that appeared in the images, beat a record: it became the most expensive book published in the twentieth century.It was auctioned in Berlin by 370.000 dollars.
Months after Helmut's death in 2004, June inaugurated the Helmut Newton Foundation.The place chosen in Berlin for the headquarters gives just to the dock where Helmut dismissed his parents when they left for a country called Argentina.
June survived seventeen years at his great love.He died at his home in Montecarlo at age 97, in April 2021.No one will know why they never had children.Maybe they were too aware that their egos consumed all their time and energy.
¿Voyeurista, misógino, sexista, inmoral, manipulador…? Son algunas de las tantas cosas que se dijeron de él.But the years go by and their style continues to cause.To the point that, in 2020, a documentary was made about his life called The Bad and the Beautiful (the bad and the beautiful).
La frase final de la autobiografía de Helmut viene bien para cerrar esta nota: “Aquí doy por terminada mi historia, porque hablar de los éxitos propios, grandes o pequeños, carece sencillamente de interés para el lector.What this book is about is how to get there ”.
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