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Helmut Newton
"Rue Aubriot 2, Paris, 1975" Original Silver Gelatin Print by Helmut Newton
1975

Name: "Rue Aubriot 2, Paris, 1975" Original Silver Gelatin Print by Helmut Newton
Brand: Helmut Newton
Rating: 5 (4 reviews)

$1,895List Price

About the Item

Original early 1980's silver gelatin print titled "Rue Aubriot" featuring actress Vibeke Knudsen and a nude model alone in a lamp lit Parisian street. This image is the second in the series and is incredibly rare to find. The image has become one of Helmut Newton's most popular and widely collected. Styled in a deliberately androgynous outfit made up of Yves Saint Laurent's cult Le Smoking dinner jacket, pin-striped wide leg formal trousers and white tie, the photography was to immortalize the Yves Saint Laurent aesthetic that took over the 70’s. Newton loved to shot outdoors and this night-time scene, using only the street lighting available, was directly drawn from the nocturnal photographs of his hero, Brassai. Recalling the shoot in an interview with New York Magazine in 1988 Newton said: 'Vibeke was a girl I often worked with in those days. The idea was a man-woman standing in the street at night with the street, in fact, in Paris' Marais district, where I lived for 14 years." Newton’s own house can be seen in the background. Image measures approximately 13"x19" on a 16.5"x20" silver gelatin sheet. A woman stands alone in a city street at night. Helmut Newton's camera has captured an intensely private moment, the figure's inner calm is a marked contrast to the rakish cut of her suit. The woman in the photograph evokes a familiar figure from 19th century French art, the cold-eyed (and always male) dandy who, in Baudelaire's famous formulation, has 'no profession other than elegance'. The photograph is unusual in Newton's corpus in that the woman is fully clothed, her long legs and pinstripes echoing all the other strong verticals in the picture. As though to repair the omission, Newton took a second photograph - the same model, same suit, but a nude model in high heels has approached the suited figure and caresses her shoulder and arm. A slight shift in posture of the clothed woman reveals two things previously obscured: her high heels and her painted nails, which match those of the nude. We are being invited to imagine that the two women are one and the same - dandy and streetwalker - undressed in the eye of the hidden paparazzo, Helmut Newton himself. This is a rare pre-1985 original vintage print produced in small numbers from a series of transparencies that Newton considered his most provocative and important work through 1985. Always unsigned, they were sent out to major publications to stimulate interest in a photographer’s work. Most were destroyed or written over, it is very rare to find them in immaculate condition. This collection of vintage prints were gifted to Newton’s agent Norman Solomon, in recognition of the work he had carried out in promoting Newton’s “Private Property” series of exhibitions in 1985. This fine art print comes with a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Norman Solomon. The ownership rights of this vintage print are supported by an original agreement with Newton in 1984, and supplemented by a further agreement with The Helmut Newton Estate in 2012. This print has been stored in conservation condition. About Helmut Newton Newton was born on October 31, 1920, in Berlin, Germany. Son of wealthy Jewish factory owner, he attended the American School in Berlin. From an early age, Newton developed a keen obsession with photography, purchasing his very first camera aged 12. Four years later, Newton was to turn his back on mainstream education, taking an apprenticeship with renowned German photographer, Elsle Simon, known as Yva. Her surreal, multiple exposure photographs that took in fashion, theatre and the nude were to inspire Newton throughout his career. On November 9, 1938, due to Hitler’s increasing persecution of the Jews, his family left Germany and fled to South America. Newton, instead, was secured passage to China, where he stopped in Singapore until 1940 before leaving to Australia and finding work as a truck driver in the Australian Army. In 1948, he married actress June Browne, herself a photographer under the name of Alice Springs, a name she chose from a map of Australia. The two would form a lasting artistic duo- Browne art directed many of Newton’s shoots. High-profile contracts with Australian Vogue in the 1950’s; British Vogue in 1957-1958; French Vogue in 1961 provided Newton with the exposure that would allow him to stamp his style on fashion photography over the next 40 years. Known as the ‘King of Kink’, Newton’s erotically charged imagery was provocative as it was masterful in its compositional and narrative direction. Creating highly charged images layered with voyeuristic, sado-masochist undertexts, Newton was drawn to empowered woman presenting a potent image of female sexuality in the 60’s and 70’s. Often working at night and known for his dislike for the studio, Newton championed Brassai’s street photography, borrowing from New Wave cinema and the surreal images of Man Ray and Eugène Atget. Along with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, his influence on future generations has been seismic- most notably in the work of Terry Richardson and Juergen Teller. Newton’s work gained increasing prominence following his first one-man exhibition in Paris in 1975 which was quickly followed by his first book, White Woman; and then exhibitions in New York, Paris, London, Geneva, Los Angeles and Toyko through the rest of the 70’s. Major retrospectives at the Berlin’s national Neue Galerie (2000), Barbican (2001), International Center of Photography, New York (2001) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2011), have now secured Newton’s reputation as one of the 20th centuries photographic masters. His auction record stands at $950,000. Newton died, aged 83, in 2004 following a major car accident in Los Angeles. The Helmut Newton Foundation survives him

Creator:
Helmut Newton (1920-2004, German, Australian)
Creation Year:
1975
Dimensions:
Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 16.5 in (41.91 cm)Depth: 0.02 in (0.51 mm)
More Editions Sizes:
20x24 Price: $2,495
Medium:
Silver Gelatin
Movement Style:
Contemporary
Period:
1970-1979
Condition:
Item is in new condition. Never framed or displayed.
Gallery Location:
Los Angeles, CA
Reference Number:
Seller: HN_02 X1stDibs: LU107824030932

Category

1950s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin, Photographic Film, Photographic Paper

Burt Glinn
Katharine Hepburn, Iconic Hollywood Actress, Black and White, Photography, 1950s, 1959

$1,500

H 10 in W 8 in

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About the Item

Helmut Newton

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