Born in Berlin in 1920, Helmut Newton trained as a teenager with legendary photographer Yva, following her lead into the enticing pastures of fashion, portraiture and nudes. Forced to flee the Nazis aged only 18, Newton never left Berlin behind. After his career exploded in Paris in the 1960s, he returned regularly to shoot for magazines like Constanze, Adam, Vogue, Condé Nast's Traveler, ZEITmagazin, Männer Vogue, Max and the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin as well as his own magazine Helmut Newton's Illustrated. In 1979, the newly relaunched German Vogue commissioned him to retrace the footsteps of his youth to capture the fashion moment. The resulting portfolio, Berlin, Berlin!, inspired the title of the exhibition which celebrates 20 years of the Helmut Newton Foundation. From three neatly dressed besuited models in front of the Brandenberg Gate to a busty Marilyn lookalike scoffing street food, an art installation with the Christos, hirsute nudes of the 70s and bar scenes, outdoor pool scenes and Aryan blondes in plaits, this collection includes Newton's most iconic Berlin images. As well as many unknown shots from the 1930s to the 2000s there are nightcrawlers in uber-cool clubs and restaurants, nude portraits in the boarding houses he knew from his youth, and the Berlin film scene, featuring Hanna Schygulla and Wim Wenders at the Berlin Wall, John Malkovich, and David Bowie. In October 2003, only months before his death, Newton moved large parts of his archive to his new foundation, housed in the Museum of Photography beside the Zoologischer Garten station, the very station from which he fled Berlin in the winter of 1938. This publication thus closes a circle in the story of his extraordinary life and work. Text in English, French and German. Superb mono photos throughout the large 21 x 27.5cm, 244 pages. New from Taschen.
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