Pola Woman

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 in-crowd 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; the 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. Helmut Newton was born in Berlin in 1920 and died in Hollywood in January, 2004. He began his career at the age of 16, working for famous Berlin photographer, Yva. As an 18-year-old, he emigrated to Australia, returning to Europe in 1957 to settle in Paris. As of the 1980s he lived in both Monte Carlo and Los Angeles. His first solo exhibition took place in Paris in 1975. Awards for his photographic oeuvre include the German GroSe Bundesverdienstkreuz, the French Grand Prix national de /a photographie and the World Image Award. 160 pages, 175 illustrations in color and duotone