Berlin, Berlin!

In 1938, eighteen-year-old Helmut Neustädter boarded a train at Berlin’s Zoologischer Garten station: like many of his Jewish contemporaries, he was leaving Germany to escape the mounting threat of persecution. More than six decades later, his story came full circle when Neustädter – now a world-famous photographer with the name of Helmut Newton – decided to move parts of his archive to his original home city. This gave rise to the Helmut Newton Foundation, located in Berlin’s former Landwehr Casino building – right next to the train station from which the photographer had departed all those years ago. 

The Helmut Newton Foundation opened its doors in 2004, shortly after the artist’s passing at the age of 83. The historic premises, which are now known as the Museum für Fotografie, are home to the Helmut Newton Foundation as well as the Kunstbibliothek exhibition spaces. Throughout the years, the two institutions have been attracting visitors from around the world with their high-calibre exhibitions. Since the death of Newton’s wife, June (alias Alice Springs) in 2021, both of the couple’s oeuvres and archival materials have been housed in the Foundation’s holdings.

This special jubilee exhibition shines the spotlight on Newton’s iconic and lesser-known photographs of Berlin, captured between the 1930s and the 2000s. The images are re-contextualised in a diverse group exhibition spanning from vintage prints by Else Ernestine Neuländer (aka Yva) to political press images by Barbara Klemm. The represented photographers also include Jewgeni Chaldej, Arno Fischer, Thomas Florschuetz, Hein Gorny, F.C. Gundlach, Will McBride, Wim Wenders, Ulrich Wüst, and Günter Zint, amongst others.