Luxury, Class and Pleasure

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Video preview of the giant new Helmut Newton show at the Grand Palais in Paris through June 17 – it's kind of shocking that this is the very first retrospective of his work in France. From the Grand Palais website:

We used to say of Yves Saint Laurent that his creations had empowered women. The same could be said of Helmut Newton, who was long intimately involved in YSL’s approach, and that was no accident. Nude or in a dinner jacket, Newton’s women are powerful, seductive and dominant - never icy but always impressive or even intimidating. They are liberated women who take full responsibility for the freedom of their bodies, timeless and unclassifiable, open to all fantasies. They are rich women, who have conquered the world and its money, and luxuriate in refinement, from evening gowns to bed. Luxe, classe et volupté could be the motto of the Newtonian woman. When Newton published A World Without Men, he formulated the visionary expression of a society in which women had gained enough power to do without men if need be.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a new film, Helmut by June, directed by Helmut's wife June Newton – a great photographer herself (pictured at right in the photo below). Go here for info.

Marvelous

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An odd little profile of Franceline Prat, the legendary former editor of Paris Vogue. Carine and Emanuelle get the attention these days, and deservedly so, but there are giants who came before them who deserve attention too. Even when their English is almost impossible to understand. Just watch it. Look at her jewelry.

Let's all make an effort to keep it chic this week.

(video by The Little Squares)

Image of the Day

. Well, two of them, both Polaroids by Helmut Newton: Untitled (Girl Smoking a Cigar), and Blumarine Fashion, 1993 – from Helmut Newton: Selected Works, on display at Hamiltons Gallery in London through May 15th. Click here for more.

Ego Trïp

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Covers of the Paris-based fashion magazine Egoïste – published intermittently since 1977 by founder and editor Nicole Wisniak.

Back issues, with photography by Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon, Paolo Roversi, to name a few, go for hundreds on eBay.

The first issue since 2007 is due out next month and I'm sure it will go quickly – I will definitely be on the hunt.

Read more about Egoïste in a recent article at nytimes.com.

Image of the Day

. Helmut Newton: Elsa Peretti in Halston Bunny Costume, New York, 1975 (Gelatin silver, 14-1/4 x 9-1/2 inches, edition 10 of 75, signed on verso in pencil with artist's stamp). Estimated to sell for $30,000 - $40,000 in the December 2010 Heritage Signature Vintage and Contemporary Photography Auction.

Here's a video highlighting some of the other auction items – it's quite a collection:


Step right up and place your bids (or: gawk at the catalog and wish you were filthy rich) through December 2nd at fineart.ha.com.

Little Sumo

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Helmut Newton, at right, with publisher Benedikt Taschen in 1999.

While we're on the subject of the late Helmut Newton (1920-2004), it's worth noting that next month sees Taschen's tenth-anniversary re-release of SUMO, a behemoth collection of approximately 400 of Newton's photographs, which covered the full spectrum of the influential photographer's career and included many images never before seen.


SUMO (worthy of its name at 464 pages, dimensions of 20 x 27.5 inches and a 66-pound heft) was first published in 1999 in a limited run of 10,000 copies, each personally signed by Newton and accompanied by a stand custom designed by Philippe Starck.



The original tome quickly sold out at $15,000 a pop, and has subsequently become highly sought after by collectors, with copy number one selling at German auction in early 2000 for the equivalent of $430,000. A copy is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.



Taschen's revised hardcover re-release, which coincides with this summer's exhibition of images from the original book at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, will be smaller (10 x 15 inches) and decidedly more affordable ($150). More modest, maybe, but as Newton's photos attest, no doubt still packing a big punch.

The new edition of SUMO can be pre-ordered now through Taschen's website, here.

Image of the Day

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Helmut Newton, Le Smoking, 1975
(Rue Aubriot, Paris)

As we move inexorably towards autumn, Helmut Newton's iconic image of Yves Saint Laurent's equally iconic le smoking is a seductive reminder of the attractions of a darker season.

From Alicia Drake's endlessly fascinating book The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris:

By the early 1970s, fashion photographers were the new visual heroes. Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin were producing powerful and arresting images at French Vogue, each exploring their own highly personal obsessions under the patronage of fashion photography. Newton was transfixed by sex, power, and a subversive tension to his narrative compositions . . . .

Newton's vision of woman coincided almost exactly with that of Yves Saint Laurent. "I like to photograph a certain kind of woman that seems to have a certain availability, a woman that is probably gonna cost a lot of money to have but that makes it even better," said the late Helmut Newton. "Yves made a woman look just like that. A lot of his clothes, le smoking for instance, are exactly the way I wished my ideal woman was dressed. It is the glorification of the sixteenth-arrondissement bourgeoise woman with too much money, too much free time on her hands, and up to all kinds of tricks."

The Unseen Hand

.Emily found this great British Vogue photography book in Bozeman, Montana. It discusses the process of how the magazine has worked with photographers over the years, and features a bunch of outtakes, contact sheets, re-touching notes, correspondence, etc.

Here are some highlights (click to enlarge).

Michael Cooper, 1965

Helmut Newton, 1966

A 22 year-old David Bailey's first contribution to Vogue, 1960. The letter is an interesting read: "In return for this guarantee, it is understood you will do no editorial work for either Harpers Bazaar or the Queen."

Norman Parkinson, 1958 and 1960.

John Deakin, 1952. ("I am very worried about John Deakin at the moment, since he is obviously a very sick man, and should not really be working at all. As you know, he has noone to look after him, and in his present condition he is finding it extremely difficult to wash, shave, etc., and I think that the whole business is beginning to get him down.")

Ellen Von Unwerth, 1991. (Really classic and beautiful compared to some of her later work—this reminds me of a higher contrast Peter Lindbergh.)

Unknown, 1974. (Looks a little like later Sam Haskins, or Jeanloup Sieff in color.)

Guy Bourdin, 1971 and 1970.

Just Jaeckin, 1967.

Bob Richardson, 1966.

Don Honeyman, 1952.

Horst, 1949.

Guy Bourdin, 1977. (I would not be surprised if this shoot was the inspiration for the current Versace campaign by Mario Testino, below.)