41
Helmut Newton
Elsa Peretti as a Bunny, New York
- Estimate
- £40,000 - 60,000‡
£81,250
Lot Details
Gelatin silver print.
1975
58.9 x 39.5 cm (23 1/4 x 15 1/2 in.)
Signed, titled, dated and numbered 4/10 in pencil on the verso.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Catalogue Essay
Helmut Newton’s 1975 photograph of Elsa Peretti – dressed in a Playboy-associated ‘Bunny’ costume by Halston and posed in strong daylight against a backdrop of New York’s towering skyscrapers has been widely published, first in 1976 in Vogue Paris and his first book White Women. Peretti recalls the impromptu shoot:
One morning, he said, ‘I want to do a picture of you.’ I didn’t know what to wear. I went to my closet and came out wearing this costume I’d worn to a party with Halston. Helmut was flabbergasted. He took me on the terrace and took the photo. It was 11 A.M.
Newton’s eye for commanding sensuality, provocative scenarios and incongruous juxtapositions, as exemplified here, revolutionised the conventions of fashion and glamour photography.
One morning, he said, ‘I want to do a picture of you.’ I didn’t know what to wear. I went to my closet and came out wearing this costume I’d worn to a party with Halston. Helmut was flabbergasted. He took me on the terrace and took the photo. It was 11 A.M.
Newton’s eye for commanding sensuality, provocative scenarios and incongruous juxtapositions, as exemplified here, revolutionised the conventions of fashion and glamour photography.
Provenance
Exhibited
Literature
Helmut Newton
German | B. 1920 D. 2004Helmut Newton's distinct style of eroticism and highly produced images was deemed rebellious and revolutionary in its time, as he turned the expected notion of beauty, depicted by passive and submissive women, on its head. Depicting his models as strong and powerful women, Newton reversed gender stereotypes and examined society's understanding of female desire.Newton created a working space for his models that was part decadent and part unorthodox — a safe microcosm in which fantasies became reality. And perhaps most famously of all, Newton engendered an environment in which his female models claimed the space around them with unapologetic poise and commanding sensuality. His almost cinematic compositions provided a hyper-real backdrop for the provocative images of sculptural, larger-than-life women, and enhanced the themes of voyeurism and fetishism that run throughout his work.
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