BERLIN.- With the exhibition 'Alice Springs', the Berlin-based
Helmut
Newton Foundation will be presenting as of June 12th, 2010 the
first retrospective of June Newton internationally. In 1970, she started
her own photographic work under the pseudonym Alice Springs; this has
been exhibited regularly at the Helmut Newton Foundation since 2005,
namely in "June’s Room.” The current retrospective in Berlin provides
with a range of approximately 250 works a comprehensive look at the four
decades that span her work, presenting photographs from advertising and
fashion as well as nudes and portraits.
Her own photographic oeuvre began with a bout of influenza suffered
by Helmut Newton in Paris in 1970. June Newton had her husband show her
how to handle the camera and light meter and in his place photographed
an advertisement for the French cigarette brand Gitanes. The portrait of
the smoking model would be the jumpstart of a new career. In the early
1970s, Alice Springs shot several campaigns for the French hair stylist
Jean Louis David; the photographs appeared under her byline as full-page
ads in renowned fashion magazines. 1974 saw the first Alice Springs
cover image adorning French Elle.
By this time she had also received innumerable commissions for
portraits, some of which have become iconic. The roster of artists,
actors and musicians depicted by Alice Springs over the last 40 years
reads like a "who’s who” of the international cultural scene on both
sides of the Atlantic. Many portraits were magazine assignments from
Paris to Los Angeles; others resulted from private initiative.
Alice Springs does more than document the appearance of celebrities
and anonymous contemporaries; she captures their charisma, their aura.
Her eye for people is mostly concentrated on people’s faces.
Occasionally she narrowly frames her subjects in a half- or
three-quarters’ length portrait, where the hands receive special
attention as well. It might be that her deep knowledge of acting helps,
how to simultaneously look at and beyond the human façade. This is
particularly evident in her double portraits, in which the protagonists’
interaction is perfectly staged.
There is a certain sense of familiarity in her images; actually they
oscillate between distance and intimacy. In her subtle portraits we
encounter the haughty stance alongside natural self-confidence as well
as the shy glance. Dramatic poses are seldom, and the process occurs
without grand gestures on the part of the photographer. Her images are
visual commentaries that interpret the photographed