The women are dominant and certainly aren’t to be messed with. The power play at the heart of Newton’s imagery successfully pushed the boundaries with regard to gender and identity. By flaunting these unobtainable images of glamour, not only did Newton sell sex, but he also sold a fantasy that was far more powerful than any item of clothing could ever be. As Robin Muir comments in the aforementioned Vogue article: “the trials of quotidian life did not exist she would never run for a taxi, shop for groceries or turn up at the school gates she inhabited ‘a Nietzschean Disneyworld of pretend power games and kinky joy rides’”. Interestingly, doing this also allowed him to tap into something that fashion photographers still strive for today, which is to say that a Newton woman definitely didn’t lead an ordinary life. While four women look spectacular wearing beautiful haute couture in one photo, the same quartet is just as powerful wearing nothing at all. Take his famous pair of images Sie Kommen (Nude) and Sie Kommen (Dressed), printed in Vogue Paris in 1981. Newton hugely disrupted the function of fashion photography by demonstrating just how strong and confident women could be without clothes. It perhaps seemed counterintuitive to show his subjects in a state of undress when the magazine’s purpose was to present clothing in an appealing way.
Newton’s work was exciting and, unlike conventional fashion photography of the time, certainly left a lasting impression on Vogue readers. His risqué black-and-white photographs were unashamedly provocative, presenting erotically charged images of women exerting power through assertive sensuality. Strong, sexy women were Newton’s subjects of choice, posed in fetishistic fantasy scenarios which were totally at odds with the prevailing conservative depictions of femininity.
Here we delve into the essence of Newton’s work, and how he defined the Vogue aesthetic in the decades he worked with the publication. In addition, he shot A-listers including Jerry Hall and David Bowie for the magazine. Also known as ‘the King of Kink’, Newton brought irresistible glamour and sex appeal to the art of fashion photography, printing provocative shots of powerful women on Vogue’s pages. It was indicative of my whole feeling for the place.”Īlthough he only saw out 11 months of his year-long contract, he eventually became a regular contributor, going on to work with the French, American and Australian strands of the fashion bible, and establishing himself as one of the most prolific photographers in the world.
“I was told that under the grassy square were the bodies of people who had died during the black plague. “The Vogue studios in Golden Square were depressing and dusty, with terrible old wooden floors,” he wrote in his autobiography. I controlled the situation, I wasn’t the deer, I was equal to the hunter, I could decide what I wanted to do.” Nadja Auermann, the subject of some of Newton’s most triggering images, including one in which she describes herself looking like a discarded doll, opines: “We can say that this is sexist or misogynistic, but we can also say that he holds up a mirror to society: and basically shows you want your wife to run around in a short skirt and basically treat her like a Barbie.To say Helmut Newton was expecting the worst when he arrived at British Vogue in the late 1950s would be an understatement. And Helmut Newton’s photos made me stronger. “When you are 20 years old, 1.80 meters tall with blond hair, you feel like a hunted deer. In contrast, model Sylvia Gobbel says she felt transformed when posing for the photographer. “I am fundamentally against restricting the freedom of art,” von Boehm says, nonetheless, he includes archival footage of Susan Sontag accusing Newton of being a misogynist.
The photographer was unapologetically politically incorrect, a characteristic that is celebrated by the director. Indeed, power is one of Newton’s main subjects, and it’s what makes his work so controversial, never more so than now in this moment of cancel culture.
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