The fetish in the book transferred to the book itself and elevated an art book to status symbol, ostentatious and even vulgar.

Matisse, Modernist architecture, pin-ups — until Sumo, the company was best known for its affordable Basic Art series of art history paperbacks. Legendary SUMO copy number one, autographed by over 100 of the book’s featured celebrities, also broke the record for the most expensive book of the 20th century, selling at auction in Berlin on April 6, 2000 for 620,000 German Marks.His bold, seductive and controversial style continues to influence many brands, photographers and advertisers today. In an 1975 image titled ‘Rue Aubriot’, the model appears fully dressed, wearing an Yves Saint Laurent ‘Le Smoking’ tuxedo.

Twenty years later, we celebrate the legacy of this publishing venture in an XL edition, the result of a project conceived by Helmut Newton and revised by his wife June. At fourteen I took pictures of my childhood girlfriends in the streets, dressed in my mother’s dresses and hats.He photographed some of the most beautiful women in the world in poses that emphasized their sexuality, often with an accompanying sense of danger and violence. Or as Jodie Foster opined, Newton brought to the female nude a new language of strength, instead of being passive it’s very active.

Coffee-table books, such as those featuring photography and design, serve as conversation pieces or offer a relaxing moment when leafed through. from the publisher) Originally published by Taschen in 1999 in a big-format, limited, quickly sold-out signed and numbered edition of 10. However, these photographs are more complex; they play with ideas of human desire, lust, gender and power. In keeping with its title, the book weighed over 30 kilograms (66lb) and measured 50 by 70 centimetres (20in ×28in). The Champ’s Edition is signed by the icon, its 800-page tome presented in a silk-covered box with limited-edition Jeff Koons art piece.It would have been easy for Helmut to follow the pack and do the same unoriginal work of others, instead he followed his instincts and went in a new direction. Newton's growing reputation as a fashion photographer was rewarded when he secured a commission to illustrate fashions in a special Australian supplement for Vogue magazine, published in January 1956.