© Helmut Newton, Sigourney Weaver at Warner Bros, Burbank 1983_copyright Helmut Newton Foundation

Written by Federica Barrios Carbonell
Copy Edited by Erin Pedigo
Photo Edited by Yzabella Zari and Yanting Chen

Provocative, timeless, daring, and pioneering, Helmut Newton paved the way for fashion photography today. His iconic portraits of celebrities tempt the viewer to strive for a certain lifestyle, enticing them with flashes of haute coutour, glamour and success. Another effect his portraits of celebrities have is to create nostalgia for the classics here in the twenty-first century. The Helmut Newton Foundation is currently showing Hollywood, a red-carpet exhibition in Berlin, that gives us a peek at rich and famous icons of entertainment photographed by Newton and others.

Helmut Newton’s portrayal of the woman as a symbol of fashion and commerce was a new vision that revolutionized advertising. Sigourney Weaver on the Warner Bros. Lot, Burbank (1984) depicts the actress standing collected and composed while her hair and dress move in the wind as a contrast. A mundane scene is beautifully and artistically curated as she models a garment that seems to have been made specifically for her.

© Helmut Newton_Elizabeth Taylor_Vanity Fair_Los Angeles 1985_copyright Helmut Newton Foundation

Carelessly erotic yet sophisticated, Newton’s images are hypnotic because his models capture viewers’ attention through the intense sense of character that Newton conveys through the lens. A beautiful example of this intense sense of character is Newton’s photograph Elizabeth Taylor, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles (1985). Viewers become enthralled with Elizabeth Taylor’s beauty as the eye moves from the background to the foreground of the image; viewers lock eyes with Elizabeth Taylor at the bottom of the frame, where she stands in a pool, draped in jewels and holding a strikingly green parrot. These vivid color elements, along with her bright red lipstick, are subtly mesmerizing. The iconic actress’s intense gaze entices us to go in the pool with her, yet her mystique prevents us from feeling we would be granted the pleasure. Taylor was fifty-three years old when this photo was taken, embodying the dream of aging beautifully with grace. Newton’s photography idealizes her in such a natural way that we, as the viewers, become fascinated by her beauty.

© Larry Sultan, Sharon Wild, 2001, from the series The Valley, ┬® The Estate of Larry Sultan, courtesy Galerie Thomas Zander, Cologne

© Michael Dressel aus der Serie „Los(t) Angeles, 2014-2020

© Steve Schapiro, Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes in Chinatown by Roman Polanski, Los Angeles 1974

On view at the Hollywood exhibition are several of the works of Helmut Newton, along with others such as Eve Arnold, Anton Corbijn, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Michael Dressel, George Hoyningen-Huene, George Hurrell, Jens Liebchen, Ruth Harriet Louise, Inge Morath, Steve Schapiro, Julius Shulman, Alice Springs, and Larry Sultan. This group of photographers encompassed a golden age of cinema and celebrity. From images of actors in character, like Steve Shapiro’s Jack Nicholson in ‘Chinatown’ by Roman Polanski, Los Angeles (1974), to intimate moments between actress and screenwriter, like Inge Morath’s photograph Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller in their hotel room after a day of shooting ‘The Misfits’, Reno, Nevada (1960), to humanizing images of a woman whose body became her commodification, like Larry Sultan’s Sharon Wild from ‘The Valley’ (2001), the chosen selection of pieces will leave you longing to live the life of a movie star.