Helmut Newton, a pseudonym for Helmut Neustädter (1920 – 2004), was a German naturalized Australian photographer, best known for his studies of the female nude.
Interested in photography from an early age as early as 12 he purchased his first camera, and from 1936 he began working with German photographer Elsie Neulander Simon, known as Yva.
Following Nazi racial laws, he left Germany in 1938, embarking in Trieste on the steamer “Il Conte Rosso” and took refuge in Singapore, working as a photographer for the Singapore Straits Times.
He was later interned by British authorities in Singapore and deported to Australia.
On May 13, 1948 he married Australian actress June Browne known as a photographer under the pseudonym “Alice Springs” (named after the Australian city of the same name).
After the war he worked as a freelance photographer producing fashion shoots and working with magazines such as Playboy. From the late 1950s onward he concentrated on fashion photography. He settled in Paris in 1961 and embarked on a career as a professional fashion photographer. His shots appear in various magazines including fashion magazines Vogue, L’Uomo Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, GQ, Vanity Fair, Max, and Marie Claire. His particular style is characterized by glossy eroticism, sometimes with sado-masochistic and fetishistic traits.