Review: Helmut Newton Private Property Exhibition

The Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin shows the permanent presentation "Helmut Newton's Private Property", which displays personal objects, original photographs and childhood pictures from the famed photographer. Among the exhibition, centerpieces of the museum also include his cameras (the first being a Box Brownie made by Eastman Kodak), an art collection, and a library. Also included in the exhibition are numerous publications of Helmut Newton's photographs, the famous Newton-Mobile, and parts of his office in Monte Carlo, which provided a more intimate insight into his life and career.

Article by Serah Alabi @serahalabi, Content Marketing Manager at MPB Berlin 

Born Helmut Neustädter in Berlin to a wealthy Jewish family of button manufacturers, Newton left Nazi Germany in 1938. Newton worked primarily with black-and-white photography, mainly shooting Kodak Tri-X, TMax 100 and TMax 400.

Controversial scenarios, bold lighting, and striking compositions came to form his signature look. His photographs, which were shot using mostly the Rollei and Hasselblad and standard 80mm prime lenses (the equivalent of 50mm in 35mm photography), were considered dangerous, voyeuristic and provocative.

In the 1970s Newton worked for Australian Vogue. In that era, Helmut Newton was considered one of the most sought-after fashion, nude, advertising and portrait photographers in the world, developing his special aesthetic into unmistakable originality that reflects the changing spirits of the times. Some of the cameras Newton used over the five decades include a 4×5 Graflex Super D, Plaubel Makina 67, Instamatic, Fujifilm 645, Olympus OM1, Olympus OM2, Nikon FM2, Konica, Pentax-ME, Polaroid, Canon EOS 5, Canon EOS 100 and Olympus Stylus Epic ‘MJU II’.

Are Newton’s photographs of women an expression of female strength, as he himself felt? With the private property of the star photographer now on display, one can not only take a more intimate look at his life and development but also form one's own picture of Helmut Newton’s aggressive and incendiary photographs. 

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