iMuseum für FotografieCharlottenburg
Helmut Newton's One-off Album
A unique album Newton assembled in 1999 for collector Gert Elfering, shown in Berlin for the first time: hand-annotated small prints, Polaroids and outtakes.
More in Berlin
In one small print from 1977, taken at Père Lachaise cemetery, Newton's pencil note on the card reads: "Yves St. Laurent's corset, my raincoat, by the Tomb of Talma". Every card in this room has a line like that.
Newton made the album in 1999 with his friend, the collector Gert Elfering, who says he was told to go through Newton's drawers and pick what he liked. They chose 103 small prints, many of them vintage, because Newton would rather reuse an old print than pay for a new one ("No need to spend new money"). Each was glued to card and captioned by hand. It was never bound, so the cards now hang framed side by side: fashion classics, Polaroids, advertising shots and unseen working pictures.
You reach it last, through the main hall of Rooms / Stages, and one €12 ticket (€6 concessions) covers both. The prints are small and the notes are pencil, so stand close. Thursdays run until 20:00; it closes 15 November.
Look for
Tomb of Talma, Père Lachaise, 1977
A Yves Saint Laurent corset and, his caption says, Newton's own raincoat, photographed beside an actor's tomb in the Paris cemetery.
Bernice, Monaco 1994
A star of the Ballet de Monte-Carlo at the Beach Club with her leg in an iron cage that, the note says, a Berlin doctor built specially for Newton.
La Bourgeoise, Paris 1974
A colour print whose caption points to the photos on the table: Newton shot by Alice Springs, and Newton with his father in Berlin's Schöneberger Stadtpark around 1925.
The garage Polaroid, Monte-Carlo 1997
A small colour Polaroid from a shoot for Stern, which Newton's note places in his own garage.
Simonetta's eye, Bordighera 1982
A close-up of a model's eye for Italian Vogue, captioned in pencil "Simonetta's eye, crying".
Good for
- Going Solo
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You came for Newton at mural scale: these are small cards, and the giant prints hang in the hall before.
Also at Museum für Fotografie
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
6
- Helmut Newton's One-off Album© Helmut Newton Foundation
- Stelios Kallinikou: Cliffs Among Dreams© Stelios Kallinikou
- Susanne Kriemann: In the Sun's Fever Flutter Butterflies in the Stomach© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2026
- Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter© Carrie Mae Weems. Courtesy the artist and Gladstone, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin
- Museum für FotografieA.Savin / Wikimedia Commons
- C/O BerlinRaimond Spekking / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0