Helmut Newton. Femmes secrètes
Helmut Newton’s signature visual language – provocative, erotic, untouchable – came to redefine editorial photography. Fifty years on, his impactful first publication remains as striking and seductive as ever. This anniversary re-edition invites us to encounter (or rediscover) one of the most influential photobooks of the 20th century.
“Newton devoted his full attention to the characters, the surroundings, the perspectives.”
Helmut Newton. Femmes secrètes
60Naked Ambition
The book that cemented Newton’s global reputation, in a landmark international new edition
Some things age gracefully. Others refuse to behave. Fifty years on, Helmut Newton’s first publication, a book that elevated his name far beyond the pages of fashion magazines, returns in a landmark, international re-edition. First published under the titles White Women and Femmes secrètes in 1976, it brought together fashion, portraiture, and the erotic in a visual language that was cool, controlled, and unapologetically provocative.
Here are the women: glamorous, commanding, seductive, and in control. Here are the clothes, cars, hotels, pools, bedrooms, and immaculate interiors. Here are the cultural icons of the time, from Paloma Picasso, Veruschka and Elsa Peretti to Karl Lagerfeld, David Hockney, and Charlotte Rampling. And here’s Newton, orchestrating it all with his famously sharp eye and subversive sense of humor.
This 50th-anniversary edition preserves the source selection and sequence of photographs, alongside Newton’s own reflections and Philippe Garner’s original introduction. Garner, who first met Newton in 1975 and later became Vice-President of the Helmut Newton Foundation, has added an updated text reflecting on the photographer’s life and on how his lens captured his “erotic pictures and portraits mondains.”
Half a century on, Newton’s arresting compositions and appetite for the subversive continue to fascinate. This new, multilingual edition gives a fresh generation of readers, photographers, artists, and fashion lovers the chance to discover what made Femmes secrètes challenging then – and what it still reveals today.
Exhibition:
Newton Foundation, Berlin
Helmut Newton‘s Early Books
From December 2, 2026 to May 16, 2027
The photographer
Helmut Newton (1920–2004) was one of the most influential photographers of all time. He first achieved international fame in the 1970s while working principally for the different international editions of Vogue, where he was celebrated for his controversial scenarios and the ability to make a thoroughly planned photograph seem fresh and dynamic. His many titles and awards include Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
The editors
Matthias Harder studied art history, classical archaeology, and philosophy in Kiel and Berlin. Head curator of the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin from 2004, and since 2019 the Foundation's director, he has written numerous articles for art magazines, books and exhibition catalogues.
Philippe Garner is an auction specialist in photographs and 20th century decorative art and design, a historian, writer, exhibition curator, and vice-president of the Helmut Newton Foundation.
Helmut Newton. Femmes secrètes
Hardcover, 23 x 30.5 cm, 1.35 kg, 132 pagesISBN 978-3-7544-0785-1
Edition: Multilingual (English, French, German)No reviews have been posted for this item yet. Be the first to rate this product.