19 Facts About Helmut Newton

Helmut Newton attended the Heinrich-von-Treitschke-Realgymnasium and the American School in Berlin.

Helmut Newton was issued with a passport just after turning 18 and left Germany on 5 December 1938.

Helmut Newton was interned by British authorities while in Singapore and was sent to Australia on board the Queen Mary, arriving in Sydney on 27 September 1940.

Helmut Newton was released from internment in 1942 and briefly worked as a fruit picker in Northern Victoria.

In 1946, Helmut Newton set up a studio in fashionable Flinders Lane in Melbourne and worked on fashion, theatre and industrial photography in the affluent postwar years.

Helmut Newton shared his first joint exhibition in May 1953 with Wolfgang Sievers, a German refugee like himself, who had served in the same company.

Helmut Newton went into partnership with Henry Talbot, a fellow German Jew who had been interned at Tatura, and his association with the studio continued even after 1957, when he left Australia for London.

Helmut Newton's growing reputation as a fashion photographer was rewarded when he secured a commission to illustrate fashions in a special Australian supplement for Vogue magazine, published in January 1956.

Helmut Newton won a 12-month contract with British Vogue and left for London in February 1957, leaving Talbot to manage the business.

Helmut Newton left the magazine before the end of his contract and went to Paris, where he worked for French and German magazines.

Helmut Newton returned to Melbourne in March 1959 to a contract for Australian Vogue.

Helmut Newton's images appeared in magazines including the French edition of Vogue and Harper's Bazaar.

Helmut Newton established a particular style marked by erotic, stylised scenes, often with sado-masochistic and fetishistic subtexts.

Helmut Newton shot a number of pictorials for Playboy, including pictorials of Nastassja Kinski and Kristine DeBell.

In 2009, June Browne conceptualised a tribute exhibition to Helmut Newton, based on three photographers that befriended Helmut Newton in Los Angeles in 1980: Mark Arbeit, Just Loomis, and George Holz.

Since the 1970s Helmut Newton regularly used Polaroid cameras and film for instant visualisation of compositions and lighting situations, especially for his fashion photography.

In 1992 Helmut Newton published Pola Woman, a book consisting only of his Polaroids.

Helmut Newton was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; doctors were unable to save him, and he was pronounced dead.

Helmut Newton's ashes are buried at the Stadtischer Friedhof III in Berlin.