“I started doing a lot of fashion pictures at night in Paris. . . Night gives a very mysterious quality to a woman in the street. I love that.”
—Helmut Newton
When shooting for the September 1975 Vogue Paris article ‘Haute Couture, 1975-1976', Helmut Newton (1920-2004) also captured the iteration of Rue Aubriot offered here for his personal portfolio. In this street scene, we are confronted by two quintessential Newton subjects: a striking woman, subverting gender stereotypes in a sophisticated Yves Saint Laurent tuxedo, and a powerful nude woman, wearing polished heels and a stylish Paulette hat. They command the Parisian street at night with an alluring and fantastical sensuality while projecting a calmly dominant and elegant air. Newton's distinct style of eroticism is emphasised in the present lot by the high-gloss finish of the ferrotyped paper, which was his preferred way of presenting his photographs at the early stage of his career. In the wake of 1930s photo-journalistic printing techniques, his use of the ferrotyping process pinpoints the real-time theatrics of photographing on the streets of Paris, intensifying deep blacks to create raw contrasts akin to the practices of paparazzi.
Here, Rue Aubriot of Paris’s Marais district, known as a beacon for prostitution at this time, is reclaimed as a space for female power and dominance. ‘A woman does not spend her life sitting or standing in front of a seamless white paper background,’ Newton once claimed. ‘I prefer to take my camera out into the street, into public and private places.’ With his former home at 4 Rue Aubriot acting as the backdrop, this image can be read as representative of his life in Paris. Another reference to his personal life is the dedication to his close friend Patricia ‘Pattie’ Faure, a photographer turned art dealer, citing memories of their crossed paths in Paris.