The Helmut Newton Foundation opens 'America 1970s/80s: Hofer, Metzner, Meyerowitz, Newton'

The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Thursday, March 28, 2024


The Helmut Newton Foundation opens 'America 1970s/80s: Hofer, Metzner, Meyerowitz, Newton'
Helmut Newton, Stern, Los Angeles 1980, © Helmut Newton Estate.



BERLIN.- The Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin announces its new exhibition “America 1970s/80s” with works by Evelyn Hofer, Sheila Metzner, Joel Meyerowitz, and Helmut Newton.

After taking a full-time position with the French edition of Vogue in 1961, Helmut Newton worked in parallel for the fashion magazine’s American edition as well. During this time, he produced images in both Europe and the USA. In New York, Newton delivered his photographs directly to Alexander Liberman, who was the editorial director of American Vogue from the 1960s to the 1990s – not to mention a successful painter, sculptor, and photographer himself. Newton liked the United States and the sense of freedom it offered, and he regularly commuted between the Old and New Worlds. In the 1970s, most of Newton’s American fashion and nude photographs were shot in New York, Las Vegas, Miami, and Los Angeles for various magazines; Newton included some of these in his second photography book, Sleepless Nights (1978). After 1980, when Helmut and June Newton began traveling regularly to Los Angeles to spend the winter months at Chateau Marmont, he made numerous portraits of the “famous and infamous” in and around Hollywood for magazines such as Egoïste, Interview, Vanity Fair, and New Yorker, as well as some nudes for Playboy. The images presented in this exhibition clearly show how Newton’s pictorial language changed during his time in the USA and that portraiture became increasingly important for him.




The portraits taken by Joel Meyerowitz in Provincetown, Massachusetts, were made around the same time as the Newton images presented. Every summer in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Meyerowitz retreated from New York City to the idyllic former fishing village of Provincetown. With his large-format camera he captured images of like-minded free spirits who were also there for a summer holiday by the sea surround by nature. Shot mostly outdoors, his subjects include men and women, young and old, alone or as a couple. We see intense and curious glances back into the camera and only a few poses. The people, including numerous friends and acquaintances of Meyerowitz, appear open, unaffected, authentic. Meyerowitz’s extensive portrait series was not produced on commission but was an independent project. Seen as a whole, his series is a fascinating study of a liberal, individualistic community on the American East Coast. They represent a different, freer and sometimes more permissive America than we know today. Meyerowitz recently rediscovered these portraits in his archive, and for the first time a selection was published in book form in autumn 2019. They are now being publicly exhibited for the first time at the Helmut Newton Foundation.

The American photographer Sheila Metzner had a very close friendship with Helmut and June Newton. Bearing witness to this special relationship are the private photographs they took of each other in the South of France. These previously unpublished images are now on display in two showcases in the exhibition. In her main work, Sheila Metzner often arranges minimalist objects on a similarly minimalist stage as pure form. Photographed at close range, they appear as an apparition of themselves, condensed into metaphysical essence. The delicate tones and softness of the photographs, created as Fresson prints – which evoke the bromoil prints by the avant-gardists of the 1910s – transport their content of floral and artistic forms into the realm of daydreams. People also appear repeatedly in Sheila Metzner’s work, be it her own five children or the female and male models who feature in her sophisticated fashion shoots or as nude, odalisque beauties. Metzner, who still lives in New York, visited Joel Meyerowitz in Provincetown in the late 1970s and had her picture taken there by him—this portrait is also on view in the show. Thus this exhibition, which is like a trip back in time to a progressive and cool America, comes full circle in a number of ways.

Finally, June’s Room presents 30 photographs taken by Evelyn Hofer in New York in the 1960s and ‘70s – a personal portrait of the city that includes street scenes and panoramas, interiors and portraits, in black-and-white and color. In particular, her subtle color images of everyday life in New York, printed using a dye-transfer process, are, like those by Saul Leiter and Helen Levitt, pioneering achievements of poetic magical realism in street photography, which influenced following generations of photographers. Hofer left her native Germany with her family in 1933 for Madrid, followed by Paris, Zurich, and Mexico, before settling in New York in 1946. There she worked for fashion magazines, among others, and also on independent book projects, always using a large-format plate camera and tripod. As a result, her work style was methodical, concentrated, and slow, excluding spontaneous reactions in front of and behind the camera.










Today's News

October 11, 2020

They took $645 million in valuables. Then they took a taxi.

Fabergé family archive bequeathed and handed to the Moscow Kremlin Museums

At a reduced Frieze Week, a focus on Black art

Return looted art to former colonies, Dutch committee tells government

The Helmut Newton Foundation opens 'America 1970s/80s: Hofer, Metzner, Meyerowitz, Newton'

New book offers an original and vivid portrait of David Hockney

Hermann Historica to offer works of art & antiquities in the 83rd Auction

Jonah Freeman & Justin Lowe present COLONY SOUND at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum

First ever copy of The Who's 1965 My Generation album to go up for auction

A famed horror director mines Japan's real-life atrocities

Banksy bonanza at Bonhams

Kapwani Kiwanga presents a site-specific installation at Haus der Kunst

Phillips partners with Hall Art Foundation to offer works to benefit the Dreyfoos School of the Arts

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac opens an exhibition of works by Yan Pei-Ming

Big gems cap Heritage's $7.36 million fall jewelry auction

Christie's to offer a selection of works from a beautiful property in the heart of Seville

Louise Glück, a Nobel winner whose poems have abundant intellect and deep feeling

A YouTuber hangs his own shingle with an auction website

MacDougall's auction of Russian art features 200 lots ranging from icons to contemporary art

Burchard Galleries offers lifelong collections of important treasures

Newly commissioned project from St. Louis artist brings Augmented Reality to Laumeier Sculpture Park

Gene Cernan's notes for his speech delivered during his final moonwalk of Apollo 17 up for auction

Fiona Banner and Greenpeace complete underwater barrier to trawling with installation at sea

Exhibition of works by Philippe Favier opens at the Art and Archaeology Museum of Valence

Want To Add Gucci Sunglasses For Men Into Your Collection? Here Are 5 Tips

Art Quotes from Famous Artists for Happy Life and Healing




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful