To mark the centenary of Helmut Newton, one of the most important and controversial photographers of all time, Zebra One Gallery is curating a powerful retrospective of his most iconic, influential or rare images.
Helmut Newton: 100 Years
The new exhibition will launch at the Hampstead Gallery on 31 October – what would have been the late photographer’s birthday – until 14 November and will feature 18 original, vintage silver gelatine prints showcasing the widely imitated fashion photographer’s erotically charged, black and white vignettes, often with voyeuristic and fetishistic undertones, which were the cornerstone of fashion bibles like Vogue.
Zebra One Gallery owner and curator, Gabrielle Du Plooy says: “We’ve hand-picked some of his most important images from the past 100 years and are honoured to be marking such a momentous occasion. Vintage prints were usually sent by the photographer to the newspaper or magazine editors – most were destroyed or written over. It’s extremely rare to find them in immaculate condition, so we’re incredibly excited about sharing these.”
Highlights of the show include a candid shot of a young Jerry Hall, spitting water onto her topless model friend, as well as two portraits of David Bowie, taken in Monte Carlo for Vogue before Let’s Dance catapulted him to new levels of fame. It will also include his iconic Naked and Dressed series, featuring two almost identical images of four models – in one image, the women are all naked and in the other, they are dressed in couture Eighties fashion.
The images will be on sale and on view at Zebra One Gallery, alongside TASCHEN’s spectacular new edition of SUMO, released to mark the centenary of Newton’s birth. The book has been shrunk to exactly half the size of the famous 1999 original and published in a limited edition of 10,000, with more than 400 photographs and an accompanying bookstand and pedestal designed by Philippe Starck.
Zebra One Gallery: www.zebraonegallery.com / f&i: @zebraonegallery / t: @zebra1gallery / photo credit: Helmut Newton / ONGallery
Newton explained: “With haute couture collections, you couldn’t get the clothes during the day when customers were looking at them. So everything was done at night. I like working at night znd I don’t use a flash; I use the actua street lighting.”
