THE KING OF KINK | HELMUT NEWTON - The Bespoke Corner Tailors

THE KING OF KINK | HELMUT NEWTON

It is with great pleasure that we reintroduce our feature artist Mr Helmut Newton, by way of our exciting new partnership with The Lyons Gallery in Darlinghurst Sydney.

Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was a prolific fashion photographer, widely recognised as one of the most collectable and prominent photographers ever to hold a camera. Dubbed the ‘King of Kink’ by Time magazine, his erotically charged imagery was provocative as it was masterful in its compositional and narrative direction.

Over the past decade, recognition and appreciation of his oeuvre has reached high peaks amongst collectors and art experts alike, but it is in recent years that prices have dramatically skyrocketed, and this trend is likely to continue.

A little more history on the artist. It was during his 25-year collaboration with Paris Vogue that Newton firmly established his international reputation and defined his signature style: highly stylised and erotically charged black-and-white photographs that embraced elements of glamour, fashion, erotica, portraiture and documentary, while flirting with provocative themes such as voyeurism.

In the early 1970s Newton started working for Playboy — a collaboration that would last for around 30 years. Among his most famous sitters for the magazine was Charlotte Rampling. In 1973 Newton photographed the actress, who would later become his muse, nude on a dining table in Arles, a glass of wine in hand. Over his prolific career, Newton worked extensively for American, Italian, German and French Vogue, shooting 64 covers for the latter, as well as for Marie Claire, Elle and Queen, among others. He photographed a wealth of celebrities, as well as politicians such as Margaret Thatcher and Jean-Marie Le Pen.

The market for Helmut Newton has gone from strength to strength; of his top 10 sales at auction, eight have been made in the past five years. The large format of the ‘The Big Nudes’ makes it one of his most highly sought-after series.Newton produced little colour work, often adding a blue light to avoid warm tones. His preference was to produce colour unconsciously, without knowing there was colour film in the camera. These prints are exceptionally rare at auction and command high prices when they do come to market.

The Lyons Gallery offers an exquisite collection for Helmut Newton in Original Silver Gelatin with COA, as well as Hand Signed Editions Estate Stamped dated with COA.