![]() ![]() Helmut failed to seduce June, and offered her a job as a sales assistant. Its photographer was unexpectedly cosmopolitan: Helmut, freshly surnamed Newton, a young German Jew who had fled from the Nazis to Singapore, had been forwarded to Australia as an enemy alien, and settled there. In 1947 she responded to an ad for models for a new smart studio in the city. That is what she became, under the name June Brunell. June Browne, born in Melbourne, to Alice and Thomas Browne, a vaudevillian – they soon divorced – wanted throughout her eccentric farm childhood to be an actor. The “Us” in Us and Them were the Newtons, their self-portraits capturing an intertwined marriage and artistic business partnership lasting 55 years. And she photographed style wherever it erupted, including among young street tribes in Los Angeles, where the Newtons wintered for warmth. Her three-quarter-length portraits, hands crucial, of the imperious Vogue editor Diana Vreeland and fashion eccentric Anna Piaggi in old age demonstrate that style matters, endures, more than high cheekbones. She kept her eye constantly modern, and did not demand photogenic features. Photograph: Alice Springs/Courtesy of the Helmut Newton Foundation Punks on Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, 1984. Hers are taken in the subject’s home or anywhere they felt safe. His are studio shots, controllably perfect. For June, whether it took 13 frames or three rolls of film, they revealed themselves as frankly as did the unselfconscious babies in her novel mother and child portraits. The Newtons overlapped in subjects: their exhibition and book Us and Them (1998) contrasted how for decades they photographed the same beautiful people, movie and music stars, artists and collectors, and socialites.įor Helmut, they performed their “on” selves, like living Instagram filters for their current look, public personas, the way they needed to be seen. She kept the pseudonym after she moved, on his advice, to portraiture from fashion, where she had been snapping models waiting about or makeup crew more the actual frocks. June’s work appeared with the byline Alice Springs, the town her pin hit when she stabbed at an Australian map in pursuit of a professional name, after Helmut asked her not to use her marital one. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images She showed women at home in their identity, having fun on camera. Cast as estate workers, they were captured driving tractors and eating lunch en plein air, as well as caged in the cellars and, in an instance of pure provocation, pouring glasses of sparkling wine over their breasts while staring straight back at the camera.Photographs for Depeche Mode, 1971, taken by June Newton under her professional name of Alice Springs, at an exhibition in Berlin, 2010. ‘The hair and makeup lady was very busy but the wardrobe assistant had a relatively easy ride of it,’ he adds. For 11 days, the models galivanted around the rural estate in little more than pearls and wellingtons, acting out Newton’s provocative narrative. They wondered what was going on,’ says Zanella. ‘Fifi, Mr Newton’s Parisian assistant, caused quite a stir among the locals. ![]() The astonishing photographs in Newton’s signature eye-catching style have recently been reacquired by Ca’ del Bosco. The idea was to capture a variety of perspectives on the estate in Franciacorta and, although neither diner knew it at the time, it would eventually lead to the publication of 11 Fotografi 1 Vino in 2004. By the time they reach coffee, the Ca’ del Bosco photography project has been conceived. Zanella is already a great admirer of Newton’s work and senses that this is the opportunity of a lifetime. The immaculately presented but rather reserved gentleman happens to be photographer Helmut Newton. Maurizio Zanella, the founder of Italian wine estate Ca’ del Bosco, is having dinner at Spago on Sunset Boulevard when Barbara Lazaroff, girlfriend of the chef Wolfgang Puck, who is working front of house, suggests he joins another solitary male diner. Travel back in time to Los Angeles, 1988. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |