Helmut Newton

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FOR PLAY

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orn Helmut Neustadter in Berlin on Halloween in 1920, he fled Germany in 1938. His career began with fashion maga­zines in Australia before he returned to Eu­rope in 1956 to work for Vogue. Along with Irving Penn and Cecil Beaton, Newton became one of the masters of fashion photography. His first work for playboy appeared during the mid-1970s, when he was assigned to shoot Charlotte Rampling for the magazine. It was the beginning of a fertile relationship. Newton loved to photograph Playmates, of course, but he pre­ferred to do so in unconventional settings or situations. "Helmut's influence on nude photography cannot be overstated," said Hugh Hefner. "He used his fashion photographer's eye to make the erotic almost surreal­istic." Walter Abish has written elsewhere of Newton's "inviting artificiality"—of his fetishized point of view, ""which we share with the photographer when we behold his exquisite models in their unlikely milieus. Newton died in a car accident in West Hollywood in 2004. On these pages you will find a selection of some of the extraordinary work he did for playboy.