Whilst the main halls will continue to exhibit the incomparable works of Elliot Erwitt until February 21st, space in the smaller exhibition room cum office has been dedicated posthumously to Newton, returning to his works from the mentioned publications as well as a selection of rare Polaroid photographs. Intertwined with the metallic staircase and mezzanine, Newton paradoxically commands respect whilst being completely is at home here, in the same way his coldly erotic works alone can speak for his bond with Berlin.

Newton fled Nazi Germany in 1938 as the situation became increasingly dangerous for Jews, however the first 18 years of his life that had been spent in Berlin had a profound influence on his career. His first camera, aged 12, had been purchased here; his first photographic apprenticeship under the guidance of theatrical photographer Yva, or Else Simon, was here.

Marlene Dietrich, who he claimed to have loved since a school boy, surly is the model on which all his strikingly androgynous models were based, and Newton often returned to the subject of Nazi Germany but, ever the satirist, typically with a twist, such as dressing up his wife Alice Springs as Adolf Hitler and Jerry Hall as Eva Braun, or an infatuation with Hitler’s official filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl’s legs. Newton honoured his love for Berlin in October 2003 by donating more than 1000 photographs to the city.

This collection is to be housed in the former art library, Kunstbibiliothek, opposite Berlin’s main Zoologischer Garten rail station. The building is currently going under extensive renovation – directed and partly financed by the Newtons – and should eventually be a place to showcase the city’s 19th and 20th century photography archives and also young, up-and-coming photographers.

The building is significant to Newton, who explained that it had been the last building he’d seen when he boarded a train to flee the country on the eve of World War II. One of the most important fashion and portrait photographers who brought eroticism and beyond to the realms of photography and perhaps even to mainstream society, said he was proud to see his works return to his birthplace, and “not just the nudes”, either.

In Memory of Helmut Newton
Date: February 4th – 21st, 2004
Place: Galerie Camerawork
Address: 149 Kantstrasse, 10623 Berlin
Tel: +49 (0)30 3100 776
https://www.camerawork.de