On my last trip to Berlin, I knew I had to prioritise visiting the Helmut Newton Foundation. Being married to a photographer, it would be pretty much impossible to be in Berlin without visiting and examining the portraits of such an important photographer.
For those of you who might not be familiar with his work, Helmut Newton was a German-Australian fashion photographer whose work was on the cover and inside of Vogue many, many times. Newton’s fashion photography definitely captured the zeitgeist of the eras that he was shooting in, especially with his evocative nudes. (Cindy Crawford was one of his favourite muses, for example.)
Newton died in a car accident in the early 2000s, and one of my favourite bits of the museum was a section where all letters that people wrote to his widow were displayed. There were condolence letters from everyone from the Queen to Giorgio Armani to Richard Gere. Basically, anyone and everyone who was famous in the late 20th century.
There are other exhibit rooms that aren’t dedicated to Helmut Newton (though they usually are dedicated to photography) so as a little added bonus I got to see a fair amount of Andy Warhol’s work and some really stunning celebrity portraits. The portraits of Renee Magritte and Georgia O’Keeffe were some of my favourites.
The museum also features a lot of work by Newton’s wife, Alice Springs, who is a wonderful photographer in her own right.
One of the aims of the museum is not to be a “dead” museum, so in there will at least always be one exhibit dedicated to showing the work of current photographers. I love the idea that the Helmut Newton Foundation is a “living institution”.
I was in the museum about an hour before closing time on a Friday, and I practically had the place to myself. There’s something about being nearly alone in a museum that I find thrilling. (Did anyone else read “From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankenweiler” when they were kids? I think that’s were I get my love for empty museums from.)
And I’m usually a sucker for a good gift shop, and the Helmut Newton Foundation has a really, really amazing one. It’s full of the most incredible photography and coffee table books. I easily could have spent hundreds of pounds in there. I walked away with nothing, but now that it’s nearly Christmas, I regret not snapping Sam up one of the countless books on some of his favourite photographers.
The gallery is located at Jebensstraße 2, 10623 Berlin. The museum is closed on Mondays, but it is open until at least 7pm every other day of the week, bar public holidays. Tickets are 10€
Have you ever visited the Helmut Newton Foundation? Are you a fan of his photographs?
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