Helmut Newton’s life and work to be celebrated in a major exhibition in A Coruña, Spain

‘Helmut Newton - Fact & Fiction’, created with the Helmut Newton Foundation, will open at the Marta Ortega Pérez (MOP) Foundation in November 2023

Helmut Newton black and white photograph of woman in black suit
Helmut Newton, Yves Saint Laurent, Rue Aubriot, French Vogue, 1975, Paris
(Image credit: Helmut Newton - Fact & Fiction)

A major exhibition celebrating German-Australian photographer Helmut Newton is set to open in A Coruña, Spain, later in 2023. ‘Helmut Newton - Fact & Fiction’, created with the Helmut Newton Foundation and curated by Philippe Garner, Matthias Harder, and Tim Jefferies, is the third exhibition from the Marta Ortega Pérez (MOP) Foundation. 

‘Helmut Newton is one of that celestial band of photographers whose images are instantly recognisable as their own,’ says Marta Ortega. ‘Newton’s own great revolutionary act was to utterly change the ways in which women were portrayed in the pages of glossy magazines. Here were women who enjoyed style and fashion, who enjoyed the power and splendour of their bodies, women who were elegantly seductive and untouchable. His photographs were not only of his time but far ahead of his time – he spectacularly set the scene for those photographers who followed him. To be able to work with photographers whose picture-making I have long admired is a great privilege. I do so not simply with the ambition to enrich the cultural life of A Coruña, but also in the hope that future generations of image makers will find their own inspiration in the work of these remarkable photographers.’

The exhibition will intertwine the personal and the professional, with videos of Newton at work joining personal images of his childhood and his wife June, alongside memorabilia, posters and artefacts. His portraits, including those of Jerry Hall, David Bowie, Margaret Thatcher, Charlotte Rampling, Elsa Perretti, Daryl Hannah, Naomi Campbell, Yves Saint Laurent, Andy Warholt and Karl Lagerfeld, will be exhibited alongside his ‘Big Nudes’ series and lesser-known landscapes. 

‘Helmut Newton - Fact & Fiction’ will take place 18 November 2023 – 1 May 2024 at the MOP Foundation, A Coruña, Spain

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Hannah Silver is the Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*. Since joining in 2019, she has overseen offbeat design trends and in-depth profiles, and written extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury. She enjoys meeting artists and designers, viewing exhibitions and conducting interviews on her frequent travels.