Helmut Newton (1920-2004) grew up in a Jewish family in Berlin in 1920. At the age of twelve, Helmut received his first camera and that is how he started with photography. He took photography lessons from Elsie Neuländer Simon, who would not survive the concentration camps. When his parents decided to flee to South America after Kristallnacht, Helmut himself went to Singapore. There he worked as a press photographer for a newspaper, among other things.
After many trips to Europe and assignments for Vogue, he moved to Paris in the early 1960s, where he would work as a fashion photographer for French Vogue for the next decades.
Like no other photographer, Helmut played with the boundaries between fashion photography and eroticism. His photos are therefore erotic, stimulating and challenging. Although he encountered a lot of opposition because of his erotic work, Newton provided a new starting point in fashion photography and was a great example to many.
There is currently a Helmut Newton Foundation photography museum in Berlin, where much of his work can be admired. Some of his work can also be seen in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.
