‘ALICE SPRINGS. RETROSPECTIVE’ (3 June – 19 November, 2023) at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin presents unpublished photos from the Newtons’ apartment in Monaco
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On 2 June, 2023, the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin kicked off the exhibition ALICE SPRINGS. RETROSPECTIVE, which is on display through 19 November, 2023. To celebrate the 100th birthday of June Newton, aka Alice Springs – the wife of Helmut Newton and a master of the camera herself – more than 200 photographs are on display throughout the entire exhibition space of the foundation. “She got the people she portrayed to open up,” says Curator Matthias Harder.
While major Alice Springs exhibitions were already hosted at the HNF in 2010 and 2016, many of the photographs in this new retrospective have never been seen by the public. Extensive research into the foundation’s archives, particularly the holdings recently transferred to Berlin from the Newtons’ apartment in Monaco, has provided new insight into the work of Alice Springs. Now, some of these spectacular results are on show for the first time as vintage or exhibition prints.
Under the pseudonym Alice Springs, June Newton started working on her oeuvre as a professional photographer in 1970, focusing mainly on portraiture. It all started with a case of the flu: When Helmut Newton fell ill in 1970, his wife June came to the rescue. He explained to her how to use his camera and light meter, and she took his place in shooting the advertising image for the French cigarette brand Gitanes in Paris. This portrait of a model smoking launched the new career of the former Australian stage actor, who had little chance of acting in France due to the language barrier. In the wake of this initial success, José Alvarez, then running an ad agency in Paris, arranged commissions for her to shoot ads for pharmaceutical products. Later, as head of the publishing house Editions du Regard, Alvarez published the first book of portraits by Alice Springs in 1983.
From the mid-seventies onward, Alice Springs shot many portraits. Her photographs of people are full of empathy, conveying her characteristic blend of curiosity and understanding for the individuals she encountered over the years. In her portraits of fellow photographers – including Richard Avedon, Brassaï, Ralph Gibson, Sheila Metzner, and Robert Mapplethorpe – as well as celebrities such as Nicole Kidman, Isabelle Adjani, Vivienne Westwood, Liam Neeson, and Claude Chabrol, Alice Springs succeeded in capturing not only the appearance of her subjects but also their aura.
Although most of the people she portrayed were part of the cultural jet set, Alice Springs was not concerned about her subjects’ social status. Her lens often zeros in on the human face, shown tightly cropped with the head and shoulders or as a three-quarter-length portrait. Her subjects look curiously, openly, and directly into her 35 mm camera.
Equally fascinating are her portraits of her husband, which she often took during his own photo shoots. Together with Helmut Newton’s pictures of his wife and select self-portraits, they make this comprehensive review of works complete. In a sense, these intimate images are an extension of the earlier joint exhibition ‘Us and Them’. A curated excerpt from the couple’s legendary collaborative project and other mutual portraits are displayed in the rear exhibition space. The exhibition therefore comes full circle on various levels: The life and work of Helmut and June Newton were connected in the most diverse ways, and now they meet again in Berlin.
Complementing the series ‘Us and Them’ with works by Helmut Newton and Alice Springs, ‘Private Property Suites I-III’ by Helmut Newton is on view in the project space of the foundation on the ground floor of the Museum of Photography. The series features 45 vintage black & white prints photographed between 1972 and 1983, including numerous iconic motifs from the genres of nudes, portraiture, and fashion.