June Newton, aka Alice Springs, award-winning actress and photographer, former wife of the late photographer Helmut Newton and President of the Helmut Newton Foundation, died on April 9, 2021, at the age of 97 in her home in Monte-Carlo.
The Berlin-based Helmet Newton Foundation said: “We mourn the loss of an outstanding person and an internationally recognised photographer.”
Born as June Browne in Melbourne, Australia, in 1923, she trained as an actress and had numerous engagements under the pseudonym June Brunell. In 1947 she met Helmut Newton, who had just set up a photo studio in Melbourne, and married him a year later.
In 1956, she was awarded the Australia’s Erik Kuttner Award for best theatre actress. In 1970, after having moved to Paris with her husband, she started her own career as a photographer under the pseudonym Alice Springs, and soon became a well-esteemed published artist herself.
While her first book was published in 1983, she worked and oversaw Newton’s publication White Women as art director in 1976, and subsequently all of Helmut Newton’s other books and exhibition catalogues. Two years later, her portraits were presented for the first time in a solo exhibition in Amsterdam, to be followed by numerous presentations worldwide.
In 1981 Helmut and June Newton left Paris and moved to Monaco. Around 15 years later, their iconic series Us and Them was born, published as a book and later transformed into a large exhibition, touring worldwide.
In 2004 June Newton published her autobiography Mrs Newton. The same year, Helmut Newton died, while the Helmut Newton Foundation was still under construction, leaving her the task to complete it. With tremendous energy, she took on this task, and in Summer 2004 she opened the museum.
Since then, as President of the Helmut Newton Foundation, she developed the museum in Berlin to a unique place for photography, hosting many of the most important contemporary photographers of our time.
“We will deeply miss her,” said Dr Andreas Behr, Vice-President, and Dr Matthias Harder, Director.
SOURCE: Helmut Newton Foundation PHOTO: Detail from the website of the Helmut Newton Foundation
