HELMUT NEWTON. MUSIC & PORTRAITS

This is now happening again in the exhibition at the Philharmonie Stettin. On the one hand, there are almost 40 vintage exhibition posters by Helmut Newton, which have since become sought-after collector's items and are traded for high prices on the art market – and on the other, a dozen portraits of musicians.

The framed vintage posters each represent an exhibition by Helmut Newton, who first presented his fashion photographs to the public in 1975 at the Canon Gallery in Amsterdam and since 1976 also in commercial galleries. In the 1980s, the first museums also invited Newton to solo exhibitions of his photographs. By then, he had long since reached the peak of his career, and his fame as one of the most important photographers of all time increased even further in the following years. The selection of exhibition posters from Paris, Venice, Milan, Tokyo, Turin, New York, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Vienna, London, Salzburg and Berlin exemplifies his unrivalled work and the restless life of this cosmopolitan. The poster motifs characterise the three main genres in his work: fashion, nudes and portraits, some of which are iconic images. Since the establishment of his Berlin foundation, similar posters have also hung in the permanent exhibition on the ground floor of the museum in several rows one above the other on a long exhibition wall, which in turn is a favourite photo motif for the many visitors. In the large Helmut Newton presentation ‘Fact & Fiction’ in La Coruña last year, a selection of vintage posters also formed the entrée to the actual exhibition.

In Szczecin, the exhibition posters are now accompanied by portraits of various musicians – and refer to the content of this special exhibition venue, the four-storey Philharmonie, designed by architects Alberto Veiga and Fabrizio Barozzi, which was awarded the Mies van der Rohe Prize and opened in 2014.

Musicians are sometimes incredible performers, on and off the stage, such as Mick Jagger or David Bowie, who Helmut Newton has portrayed several times – and who hang in this exhibition. In addition, there are vintage and exhibition prints in which we discover other well-known musicians, such as the Italian opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, in a dinner jacket and highly concentrated, photographed in 1993 in Monte Carlo for ‘Vanity Fair’, immediately before he leaves the dressing room for the stage. Such a portrait, or rather the opportunity to take such an intimate shot, testifies to a deep trust in the photographer. In the exhibition, we also encounter the British pop singer Sting in Milan. Newton portrayed him in a dark, double-breasted suit and white shirt collar, lying on a hotel bed with a clarinet next to him; this musical accessory is a little surprising, as he is known to primarily play the bass. Other exhibition prints by Newton show us the singers Juliette Gréco, June Anderson and Carla Bruni as well as the musicians David Lee Roth, Malcolm McLaren, and Willy de Ville. Newton gave each of them his or her individuality, while at the same time always managing to bring out something particularly characteristic of each personality.

Every portrait by Helmut Newton tells a complex, condensed story. The musician portrait has become an important sub-genre, especially as countless portraits are created for the many magazines to satisfy the visual hunger of fans. Newton photographed frequently, but not exclusively, for the magazines published by Condé Nast, including ‘Vanity Fair’, where many of his portraits were published, as well as in ‘Egoïste’ magazine and ‘The New Yorker’. If one analyses his portraits numerically, Newton was more interested in actors and actresses than in musicians, but he also created many masterpieces in this artistic field – which we can now discover the Szczecin exhibition in the Level 4 Gallery.

Dr. Matthias Harder – Director and Curator of the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin

Helmut Newton Foundation

In October 2003, a few months before his death, Newton established the Helmut Newton Foundation (HNF) – dedicated to the preservation and presentation of his own photographic works, and those of his wife, June Newton.

According to the wishes of its founder, the HNF should not be a “dead museum”, but a “living institution”. As such, each exhibition presents a selection of Helmut Newton’s innovative, provocative images in dialogue with works by the very best photographers of our time, f.i. in juxtaposition with David Lachapelle and James Nachtwey, with Larry Clark and Ralph Gibson, Greg Gorman and Frank Horvat, with Mario Testino and Guy Bourdin, with Sarah Moon and Paolo Roversi, with David Lynch and Saul Leiter – this dialogue will be proceeding.

The popularity of the exhibitions has allowed the HNF to establish itself as an dynamic new part of Berlin’s cultural scene. The addition of a stunning setting, plus a permanent display entitled Helmut Newton’s Private Property, make the foundation a must-see for anyone visiting this exciting city. Due to the close collaboration with C/O Berlin and the Collection of Photography of the Art Library the three institutions in two buildings create an unique photo-cluster in Germany. The European Month of Photography has been hosted in the fall of 2016 and 2018 by these institutions in West-Berlin.

The Helmut Newton Foundation not only organizes exhibitions in Berlin but also in other renowned museums and institutions abroad, in Amsterdam (Foam), Budapest (Museum of Fine Arts), Genova (Palazzo Ducale), Houston (Museum of Fine Arts), Milan (Palazzo Reale), Munich (Hypo-Kunsthalle), Paris (Grand Palais), Rome (Palazzo delle Espositioni), Stockholm (Fotografiska), Venice (Tre Oci) and Montreal (Museum of Fine Arts) among others. This will go on also in the future.

An interesting fact is that Szymon Brodziak is the first Polish photographer and the youngest artist whose works were exhibited in the Museum of Photography – Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin.

Read more helmut-newton-foundation.org/en/