Helmut Newton / Prince of Porn

Helmut Newton

PRINCE OF PORN

Helmut Newton – a master of perversion, a provocateur, a permanent scandalist, a king of life, an eternal boy. And a frighteningly talented photographer. For dozens of years he was responsible for exciting photo shoots for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, although fashion seemed to be merely a pretext there, since it was women that he was obsessed with and who were the true heroines in his photographs. No wonder then that the latest exhibition of photographs by Newton held in his Berlin foundation is called ‘World Without Men’.

His first memory was the sight of his half-naked nanny sitting in front of the mirror, wearing a petticoat, and the view of his mother, who – just before putting on her evening attire and leaving for a party – would come to his room to kiss him goodnight, wearing only a bra, stockings and a silk, flesh-coloured petticoat and smelling of Chanel No 5.

Born into a rich family of Jewish manufacturers, Newton bought his first camera at the age of 12 and got a practical training in the Berlin studio of the famous photographer, Yva. Then Crystal Night came and the 18-year-old Helmut fled the country, first to Singapore and then to Australia, where he opened his first studio in the city of Melbourne. In the 1950’s he moved to Paris.

He would always say that his desire was to become a great fashion photographer. While proposing to his future wife, Alice, he said, ‘photography will always be my first and you my second greatest love.’ He gradually became world-famous and earned his nickname of the Prince of Porn.

Helmut Newton’s archives are located in Berlin, where in 2002 the city authorities presented the famous photographer with a building that became the headquarters of the Helmut Newton Foundation. ‘We stopped at the backdoor to the gorgeous zoological garden and the Bahnhof Zoo,’ wrote Newton about the search for the right location in his Autobiography, ‘and I saw it. A real palace! A beautiful two-storey building from the early 20th century, with its magnificent façade (…) We were ushered inside and there were more wonders there: the interior was in an almost perfect condition, as if it had been waiting for me. Looking though the windows, on the other side of the street I could see the railway station where I had said ‘goodbye’ to my parents some 60 years before, while on my way to the big wild world. I am not a sentimental type, but I couldn’t help shivering while remembering that day.’

The place is truly splendid. On the ground floor you can trace back Newton’s life, have a look at his front covers of various colourful magazines, his private photos, his collection of cameras and even his clothes and his car. Upstairs you will always find a huge exhibition of his photos that come from the enormous archives. The Helmut Newton Foundation also organises the exhibitions of other photographers (at the moment the portraits by Francois-Marie Banier). It’s always worth visiting, even if you already know Newton inside out.

Helmut Newton, World Without Men, open till 19/05/2013

http://artinbrief.pl/2013/01/25/prince-of-porn/

Helmut Newton / Elsa Peretti

Helmut Newton

Elsa Peretti, New York, 1975

Gelatin Silver Print

Elsa Peretti

by Helmut Newton

In 1968, jewelry designer Elsa Peretti first moved to New York, where she worked as a fashion model and began to design jewelry. Her long association with Tiffany & Co. began in 1974, the year before she posed for this photograph in a bunny costume by Halston on a midtown Manhattan terrace. This is one of Newton’s most iconic images.

• BORN
• FLORENCE
• ITALY

Elsa Peretti was a successful model and fully paid-up member of the sixties New York party scene before she started designing jewellery and accessories for her friends, including Halston and Oscar de la Renta. In 1974 she started working exclusively for Tiffany & Co at which she designed her eponymous Diamonds by the Yard, Bean, Open Heart, Sevillana, Teardrop and Bottle collections.

• Peretti was born in Florence on May 1 1940 - the youngest daughter of a wealthy Roman businessman. She later studied interior design at Volbicela School in Rome before relocating to New York to further her modelling career.
• A distinguishing moment in her modelling career was posing with Salvador Dali in 1966 wearing a Paco Rabane dress.
• In 1968, Peretti began designing jewellery for Halston, Oscar de la Renta, Giorgio di Sant'Angelo. One of her first pieces was a small silver bud vase pendant. The vase, holding a flower, made its first public appearance in a Giorgio di Sant'Angelo show in 1969.
• Peretti picked up the Coty Award for Jewellery in 1971.
• In 1973 Halston asked her to design the bottle for his soon-to-be iconic perfume (which became the second-biggest-selling fragrance of all time after Chanel No. 5).
• Peretti posed for Helmut Newton in a Playboy bunny suit for French Vogue in 1975.
• In 1981 Peretti won the Rhode Island School of Design President's Fellow Award.
• To mark the 15th year of Elsa Peretti's association with Tiffany and to celebrate Peretti’s 50th birthday on May 1 1990, jewellery and tableware by Peretti was put on display at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York.
• In 1996, the Council of Fashion Designers of America named Peretti Accessory Designer of the Year.
• Elsa Peretti celebrated her 25th anniversary with Tiffany in 1999 and the company established the Elsa Peretti Professorship in Jewellery Design at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
• In 2001, the designer was presented with an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from FIT.

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Jurij Treskow / Katty

Katty 

by Jurij Treskow

Edward Gorey / The Gashlycrumb Tinies

THE GASHLYCRUMB

by Edward Gorey

 

Edward Gorey / Floating Worlds

FLOATING WORLDS

Edward Gorey's Never-Before-Seen Letters 

and Illustrated Envelopes

by Maria Popova

What a housefly has to do with Tim Burton and everything that makes snail mail great.

It’s no secret I’m an enormous fan of Edward Gorey´s, mid-century illustrator of the macabre, whose work influenced generations of creators, from Nine Inch Nails to Tim Burton. Between September 1968 and October 1969, Gorey set out to collaborate on three children’s books with author and editor Peter F. Neumeyer and, over the course of this 13-month period, the two exchanged a series of letters on topics that soon expanded well beyond the three books and into everything from metaphysics to pancake recipes.

Today, Neumeyer is opening the treasure trove of this fascinating, never-before-published correspondence in Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F Neumeyer — a magnificent collection of 75 typewriter-transcribed letters, 38 stunningly illustrated envelopes, and more than 60 postcards and illustrations exchanged between the two collaborators-turned-close-friends, featuring Gorey’s witty, wise meditations on such eclectic topics as insect life, the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, and Japanese art.

In light of his body of work, and because of the interest that his private person has aroused, I feel strongly that these letters should not be lost to posterity. I still read in them Ted’s wisdom, charm, and affection and a profound personal integrity that deserves to be in the record. As for my own letters to Ted, I had no idea that he had kept them until one day a couple of years ago when a co-trustee of his estate, Andras Brown, sent me a package of photocopies of my half of the correspondence. I am very grateful for that.” ~ Peter F. Neumeyer

Equally fascinating is the unlikely story of how Gorey and Neumeyer met in the first place — a story involving a hospital waiting room, a watercolor of a housefly, and a one-and-a-half-inch scrap of paper with a dot — and the affectionate friendship into which it unfolded.

There’s a remarkable hue to Gorey’s writing, a kind of thinking-big-thoughts-without-taking-oneself-too-seriously quality. In September of 1968, in what he jokingly termed “E. Gorey’s Great Simple Theory About Art,” Gorey wrote these Yodaesque words:

This is the theory… that anything that is art… is presumably about some certain thing, but is really always about something else, and it’s no good having one without the other, because if you just have the something it is boring and if you just have the something else it’s irritating.”

From the intellectual banter to the magnificent illustrations, Floating Wolds, which comes from the lovely Pomegranate, is as much a powerful personal memoir of an unusual friendship as it is a priceless cultural treasure containing the spirit and legacy of one of the twentieth-century’s most unique, influential and prolific creators.