“Helmut always said, ‘I want to do everything forbidden, everything you don’t do,” says curator Jérôme Neutres, referring to the late, great Helmut Newton, who was famous for creating images full of erotic power and formal beauty that just skirted the edge of propriety. Now Neutres has assisted the photographer’s widow, June, in mounting an exhibition of Newton’s work at Paris’s famed Grand Palais. The show, on view March 24–June 17, features 250 of Newton’s works and marks the first ever photography exhibition at the august institution—fittingly groundbreaking for the German-born provocateur. Newton’s celebrated nudes of the 1970s and 1980s are on ample display, but the show also includes a huge range of his work, from fashion to formal portraits—and oddities like a bull in a Scottish pasture. Vogue took an early look at five of the exhibition’s most riveting images.
See the slideshow above.
“Helmut Newton” opens March 24 and is on view through June 17 at Paris’s Grand Palais; rmn.fr