Alice Springs - June Newton

Starting in 1970, June Newton created own photographic works under the pseudonym Alice Springs.
These have been exhibited regularly at the Helmut Newton Foundation
since 2005, namely in "June's Room." The current retrospective in Berlin
provides for the first time 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, 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 jump-start 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 a
full-page ads in renowned fashion magazines. 1974 later 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. It might be that her deep knowledge of acting helps, how to simultaneously look at and beyond the human faade. 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.