“My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain.”

Helmut Newton (31 October 1920 – 23 January 2004) was a German-Australian prolific fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were widely published. 

Newton was born in Berlin and attended the American School in Berlin. Interested in photography from the age of 12 when he purchased his first camera, he worked for the German photographer Yva (Elsie Neulander Simon)  from 1936. He settled in Paris in 1961 and worked as a fashion photographer. His works appeared in magazines including French Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. He established a particular style, marked by erotic, stylized scenes, often with sadomasochistic and fetishistic subtexts.

“I was lucky to have my wife as the art director, and it turned out to be quite something – a great success”

In his later life, Newton lived in both Monte Carlo and Los Angeles. He was in an accident on 23 January 2004, when his car sped out of control and hit a wall in the driveway of the Chateau Marmont which had for several years served as his residence in Southern California. His ashes are buried next to Marlene Dietrich at the Stadtischer Friedhoff III in Berlin.