Book Description
What a sketch is for the painter is a Polaroid for the photographer, namely the first formulation of a concept, the raw material of the imagination, as it were. When Helmut Newton published a selection of his Polaroids in Pola Woman in 1992, the subculture called it a stroke of genius. It was the first time that the master let people look directly over his shoulder. We became witnesses to the magic and often intense process by which erotic fantasies become finished images; preliminary stages of a perfectly styled Newton photograph. It is remarkable, if not astonishing, that even this "raw material" possesses very original qualities and a charm of its own.


Language Notes
Text: German


About the Author
Helmut Newton was born in Berlin in 1920. He has lived in Singapore, Australia, London, and Paris and has photographed extensively for Australian, French, Italian and American Vogue, as well as for Elle, Marie Claire, Playboy, Vanity Fair and Stern. He has published numerous books and his work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world. He currently lives and works in Monte Carlo.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Newton's collection of Polaroids gives us a window into his technique. In this marvelous display of two decades of fashion and erotic photography at the rough-draft level, all the brilliance of a Newton photo is here: the exquisite light, the insouciant models, the surprise, the attitude, and the glamour. Unlike a typical photographer's monograph, there is an element of rawness rarely seen in Newton's meticulous finished work. Indeed it is these pictures' lack perfection that makes Pola Woman the perfect book with which to experience Newton's singular vision, the depth of his skill, and the boundless wealth of his imagination.

SYNOPSIS