BERLIN GERMANY.-Five months before the opening of a museum honoring the work of Helmut Newton, in his home city of Berlin, a fatal car accident terminated the photographer’s life. June 3 will be the date and the Berlin Art Library the place that will mark the reconciliation of Newton and his country, after he ranaway from Nazi persecution in 1938. Newton will not be there.

 The famed photographer who portrayed beautiful and powerful models for publications such as Vogue, Elle and Playboy will continue influencing artists for the next generations. Newton donated a thousand pieces of his work for The Berlin Art Library to open a space dedicated to him. He also paid the building’s remodeling in signal of reconciliation with the country that once persecuted him. The great opening was programmed for June, 3 2004, sadly tragedy came first.

Women nudes captured in powerful and erotic shots gave Newton a remarkable and sometimes controversial fame. Large formats, black and white and beautiful models were the ingredients of Helmut’s geniality. “Big Nudes” represented the magnificence of his work, apart of shocking photography he also portrayed personages such as Paloma Picasso, Pierre Cardin, Le Pen and Claudia Schiffer.

Helmut’s big breakthrough came in 1961 when he worked for French Vogue magazine in a little studio placed in Melbourne Australia. His first steps in photography came long before in Germany, when he was a disciple of Else Simon a well respected photographer of Berlin. After the Nazi Persecution Helmut emigrated to Singapore where he’d worked as a photojournalist for the “Singapore Straits Times” and was fired due to his incompetence.

Newton emigrated to Australia and joined that country’s army for five years. That allowed him to get citizenship and stay there.  He changed his last name from Neustaedter to Newton and married actress June Brunell in 1948. A few years later in 1970 his wife became a photographer under the name of Alice Springs. For decades she was an icon for him.

Newton was fascinated by women and, as he mentioned in his book “Autobiography” (2002), that came from his childhood, when he saw his maid semi naked. In his youth Parisian prostitutes represented a mixture of style and elegance that captured his mind and attention. Early works where he represents injured and mutilated women gave him severe critics from feminist parties.

The world confronts a great lost, a great controversial artist died and will be remembered.