"16th Arrondissement, Paris 1975" 16x20 Vintage Silver Gelatin Print by Helmut Newton

16x20 Vintage Silver Gelatin

POA (photos of actual artwork)

In ‘16th Arrondissement’ (1975), Newton subtly plays on the relationship between lady and maid. A forcefully placed hand on the side of the door and intense matching of gaze accentuates the suggestive tension of the image heightened by the threshold of the doorway. Taken in the notoriously affluent 16th Arrondissement to which Helmut Newton called home, his lens acts as a stairwell voyeur cloaked by the night – allowing us a tantalizing snapshot that plays on the viewer’s imagination of the narrative to come.  

The subtle erotic energy is typical of Helmut Newton photography and recognizable immediately. Newton is at his compositional best- using shadow’s reminiscent of prison bars and the repetition of strong diagonals in the architecture and female form to accentuate hierarchies of dominance and submission.

For lovers of the detail in Helmut Newton photography, the lady is Swedish model Gunilla Lindblad and the maid is French model, Nathalie Kent and taken at l'hotel Particulier. Nathalie worked often with Helmut over many years with at French Vogue.