June Newton:
The TNN Interview

No photographer was more inspired and audacious than Helmut Newton and his life's work in redrafting the rules of fashion and erotic photography would not have been achieved without June Newton at his side.

She first laid eyes on Newton as a model in front of his camera and spent the next fifty years step by step advising and guiding her husband as he became recognised as one the greatest photographers of all time.

June Browne was a sparkly, up-and-coming actress in Australia in the 1940’s when she met Newton, an exile from Nazi Germany who served as a soldier in the Australian Army. A year later their marriage forged a creative partnership that survived until Newton's death at the wheel of his Cadillac in 2004.

In 1970, while Helmut Newton was in hospital after a heart attack, June stood in for him on a shoot in Paris and her own photographic journey began under the pseudonym Alice Springs. Her work appeared in Elle, Vogue, Nova and various magazines; her first solo exhibition was mounted in Amsterdam eight years later and a highly-praised volume of her portrait photography appeared in France, the United States and Germany.

In addition to being an accomplished photographer, June Newton always played a critical role in Helmut’s work. She served as editor for of his books, Sumo, Sex & Landscapes and a Gun for Hire and many more. In 1995 she was the creator of the documentary film Helmut by June for Canal Plus in France and was the principle force behind the Swiss publication of Us and Them to go with an exhibition that toured the world.


As an artist, what was the emotional toll on your husband?

You are presuming that there was an emotional toll. Emotional toll! What is the emotional toll of an opera singer, or an actor, or an architect – anyway, Helmut was a photographer.

As a photographer yourself, were you able to stand back and view Helmut's work objectively, or did your personal relationship play more of a role here?

Our personal relationship never interfered with our work.

Helmut Newton makes the claim that on several occasions he nearly quit his life as a photographer or stopped working on a particular series, but it was your influence that kept him going. What would you say to get him back into it? Why wouldn’t you let him quit?

The only time Helmut put the cameras away was during a short period of depression brought on by thinking he’d made the wrong move from Paris to Monte Carlo.

The only time he thought he’d gone too far was whilst working on the series of surgical garments. He said to me, “I’ve gone too far – it’s getting sick.” I convinced him he hadn’t gone nearly far enough and he continued the series. He was rewarded by letters from women who had been in accidents and who enjoyed seeing Helmut’s photographs of attractive women wearing similar corsets, neck braces and casts to the ones they were obliged to wear.

Are there any notable works by Helmut Newton that have never been published? If so, why have they been kept under wraps?

There is a vast amount of work that will never be published. He was a most prolific photographer who took few rolls of film for each assignment. He never used a motor drive - nothing was left to chance. Nothing was kept “under wraps.” If you are referring to pornography, his best work in this field was exhibited in the Castello di Rivoli in Turin in 1999.

Helmut never peaked as a photographer. Although his work was instantly recognizable he evolved constantly. Every assignment was a new challenge and as he evolved the work became richer.

Alex Liberman once said, “Helmut Newton’s pictures are like a story that has no beginning, no middle and no end. You don’t know how it fits together, but it’s got a story.” Would you agree?

Alex Liberman was referring to a segment of the work - the cinematic scenarios – but there are the portraits, the landscapes, the commercial work, the still lives that are direct confrontations.

Are there works by Helmut Newton that stand out most to you?

There are too many to cite a favourite. The sheer joy of looking at the contacts of the latest assignments filled me with amazement. There is one “auto-portrait with wife and model” taken in the studio of French Vogue when I arrived too early for lunch and Helmut asked me to sit and wait until he finished shooting. He never missed an opportunity; he was always ready for the unexpected. I became unsuspectingly a key element of the picture.

Whenever I view Helmut’s work, I always think of the Bauhaus period; sharp angles, deep shadows, emphasis on geometric shapes. Was this an influence in Newton's career as a photographer?

As a boy he was part of this world you describe. He carried a lot of baggage with him through his long life. The Bauhaus period was part of it.

How did his photography influence your relationship? And vice-versa?

His photography had nothing to do with our relationship and vice-versa.

I can remember several instances where there was public outcry against the work of Helmut Newton, particularly from feminist groups, family values coalitions, etc. As a woman, how did you react to such cases? In hindsight do you feel there was any value to such claims?

I’ll tell you how I reacted to the feminists. One evening at La Coupole in Paris a feminist attempted to attack Helmut when she became aware of who he was. I subdued her. As I’ve said over and over again, I’m all for equality but so many feminists were so unattractive and the girls did not “pose” for Helmut under duress. All they had to say was “no” or I’d rather not, but a few who said “no” regretted their decisions later on in life. Hel’s reply was always “It’s too late now.”

Family values: It is said that Helmut upset the family values in America. You can be gay, but you cannot disturb the happy home of Middle America, which is why the carefully attended lawns are in tune with the carefully attended pubic hairs of the women who pose for Playboy. It’s like real sex doesn’t exist.

What do you think was Helmut’s goal with his photography?

Photography was a passion. In my film “Helmut by June” I make it clear that when he proposed to me he said, “Photography will always be my first love and you will always be the second.” This never changed. His goal in life was to become the photographer he became.

What is it about photography that excited your husband? Was it the process of creating an image? Meeting and interacting with new people? Getting a reaction from people? Looking at the results?

Photography was his life. Without his work he simply couldn’t have lived. He saw things differently and I was privileged to share his vision.

Why do you think the work of Helmut Newton is so widely received internationally?

Because he broke taboos, because he was true to himself, because he dared and went out there and did it and opened the doors for others.

One of our favourite photographs among the staff is the 1972 portrait Helmut took of you sitting at a table with your breasts exposed, lighting a cigarette. Can you tell us a little bit about how that image came about?

We were just sitting in the kitchen having dinner. I was wearing a favourite Ossie Clark peignoir and Helmut said, “Open it, Junie” as I lit a cigarette.

What was Helmut’s last image?

Helmut’s last assignment was for US Vogue beauty pages that took place on Monday - December 15th, 2003. I had overheard a phone conversation between Helmut and Phyllis Posnick, the editor of the sitting. A bed of nails was mentioned. I said, when the conversation ended, “what’s with the bed of nails?” and was told never mind.

Sunday morning, Helmut went to his bathroom while I prepared breakfast for the usual breakfast in bed ritual. However, on entering the bedroom with the tray, I found Helmut sitting up in bed – fast asleep. I called his name, but there was no answer, so I poked him gently and he fell to one side. I told him to wait there – not to move while I called the ambulance.

Then the interphone of the building rang, so I raced off to answer it and was told that there was a gentleman downstairs from Milan who wanted Mister Newton’s approval of a bed of nails. Before I rang for the ambulance I told Helmut what I had to do. There’s a man downstairs etc. and Helmut whispered “Junie, get me my pants, put my shoes on and help me to the lift.” So, down we go to the bed of nails proudly displayed by the driver. “There you are, Meester Newton – there is your bed of nails.”

Hel fingers the tips of the 6”-long nails and declares they are not sharp enough. “Ah, you want them sharper, Mister Newton? You will see, they will be much sharper tomorrow,” and we left him and took the lift back up to the 19th floor to our apartment where I sat Helmut up in bed and told him to stay there while I called for the ambulance. He said, “Before you do that, Junie, let me tell you something, I think I mistook a sleeping pill for a heart pill.”

So we went ahead with our breakfast of croissants and lots of coffee. Monday morning he went to work and, at the end of the day, threw a batch of work prints on the desk and said, “There - what do you think?” I looked at them carefully and said, referring to the nails, “they don’t look dangerous.”. – “Shit! I knew I should have used the flash,” and he was on the phone to Phyllis (the model, hair and makeup had already left for the airport). “Get everyone back, I want to retake tomorrow,”, and so he did. The model girl was once again gently laid on the nails, protected by whatever they protected her with on strategic points except for her head – because he wanted to show the muscles of her neck – but, fast worker that he was, it was over in a flash. As was his life.

In 1971, after Helmut Newton had a very near life threatening heart attack, it is often said that his work became more perverse. Would you agree? Did this experience change your relationship at all?

Up until the heart attack in 1971 I had contributed ideas for many fashion assignments. After the heart attack Helmut was on his own – he needed no one – a lot of the work was autobiographical – his past remembered, and he was also influenced by daily events in newspapers and magazines. The experience enhanced our relationship.

Throughout his career, Helmut Newton refused to allow anyone to call him an artist and preferred the term photographer. Can you tell us a little bit about this philosophy?

Helmut was a photographer. He was quoted in Newsweek, Feb 2, 2004, as saying, “Some people’s photography is an art. Mine is not. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or a museum, that’s fine. But that’s not why I do them. I’m a gun for hire.”

What is the first photograph by Helmut Newton you ever saw? How did it affect you?

I was sitting in his waiting room on the penthouse roof of 353 Flinders Lane in Melbourne waiting for him to appear. I thought that Helmut would be a very old man and as I waited, I was swept away by the photographs on the walls of his waiting room. A most beautiful photograph of a young man, his friend Philip Skrein, and other portraits, the likes of which I’d never seen before.

It can’t be argued that Helmut Newton had a very successful career? Were there ever any disappointments? Any goals that never saw completion?

None that I know of.

Did you know Helmut was a photographer when you met?

Yes I did know he was a photographer, which was the reason I was in his waiting room, but I’d have been just as intrigued had he been a bricklayer.

Helmut Newton is often referred to as the master voyeur. You’ve spent a lot of time capturing him in your own work; what was it like regularly pointing the camera at a man who is more accustomed to being the observer than the observed?

Many of Helmut’s pictures were voyeuristic. It helps to be a voyeur if you’re a photographer, but I never photographed a voyeur. I photographed the man whom other people referred to as “the master voyeur.”

Was there any particular series that Helmut started and you objected to?

I never ever objected to anything that Helmut did.