Helmut Newton: Portraits

Rating:
Summary: A Unique Collection of Portraits
Review: The British photographer Sir Anthony Snowdon once said something to the effect that you cannot look at a photograph and identify who shot it. He couldn't have been more wrong about someone like Helmut Newton. You recognize many of his photographs immediately. They are often of women (tall and svelte), they are erotic thought according to Newton not violent, they are often shot at night with available light, and the women are often nude or partially nude. As the photographer says, "I always want more skin." And skin he got, even in portraits. What is fair for the goose works for the gander as well. This collection begins with self-portraits of Newton from 1934 to 1986, and he is nude is several of them in what certainly are not flattering photographs. Additionally, he photographs his wife June naked or near naked as well. (There is a marvelous portrait of her sitting at a table with food and wine in front of her. She is lighting a cigarette and exposing her breasts.) In "June Newton in the metro, Paris 1957" Newton's wife looks straight into the camera's lens. The woman wearing a fur seated next to her is even more interesting. Whether the photograph was posed or not, it has a wonderful candid feel to it. Newton obviously went to great lengths to stage some of these shots, however. The two portraits of Nastassia Kinski with the Marlene Deitrich doll are perfect examples. He apparently had favorite models as there are several photographs over a period of time of both Paloma Picasso and Charlotte Rampling. The environment is important in many of these portraits. These people, many of them celebrities, are often posed in elaborate, rich but relevant settings. For example, Mr. Newton would photograph American models only in front of American automobiles, never a French or German car. He would reserve those automobiles for French and German models.

While most of these portraits are of celebrities and women, that is not always the case. There are fine portraits of unknown people and of men as well. For instance the portrait of "Female train engineers and a policewoman (left), Houston, Texas 1985" is as intriguing as anything in this book. Likewise, there are great photographs of Helmut Berger nude as well as Jack Nicholson, Prince Rainier and his friends et al.

In addition to his own self-portraits, other photographs here certainly do not flatter their subject: an extreme closeup of Debra Winger, for instance. A few of them are in color: the sexy photograph of the singer Grace Jones and Dolph Lundgren and, of course, the color shot of the bejewelled Elizabeth Taylor up to her neck in a swimming pool with a parrot clutching her finger-- and we thought there was no new way to pose one of the most photographed women of all time. Some of these shots are beautifully lit. The portrait of Paloma Picasso and Rafael Sanchez Lopez is an equisite study of gradations of grays and has a beautiful formal feel to it.

Mr. Newton, genius that he was, appears to be most down to earth. He shuns the idea of the photographer as artist as well as that the photographer can take a "psychological" portrait in the short time his subject is before him, a statement with which another great, Richard Avedon, would be in agreement. Newton understood that a camera should not be used as a "weapon to violate people."

There is no rule that says you have to like someone to appreciate his work. On the other hand, it doesn't interfere with your admiration either. Certainly that's true of Mr. Newton.