The Museo dell’Ara Pacis hosts the extensive retrospective HELMUT NEWTON. LEGACY, conceived on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the photographer's birth (Berlin, 1920 - Los Angeles, 2004) and postponed due to the pandemic. The exhibition offers a fresh look at the uniqueness, style and provocative side of the artist's work.

The exhibition, curated by Matthias Harder, director of Helmut Newton Foundation, and by Denis Curti, is promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Cultura, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali  and organizated by Zètema Progetto Cultura and Marsilio Arte, in collaboration with the Helmut Newton Foundation of Berlin.

The exhibition traces the entire career of one of the most loved and discussed photographers of all time through about 250 photographs, magazines and documents. It proposes, alongside the most iconic images, a corpus of unpublished photographs, which will reveal many lesser-known aspects of Newton's work, with a specific focus on the most unconventional fashion shots. The exhibition will provide an insight into the creative process behind some of the most significant motifs in Newton's work, while special publications,  archival materials and statements by the photographer will help the visitor understand the context in which the inspiration of this extraordinary artist was born.

In a journey divided into chronological chapters, visitors will be able to go through all the phases and evolutions of Newton's life and career, from the beginning to the last years of production.

Until the end of his life Helmut Newton continued to enchant and provoke with his singular interpretation of femininity. His cross-genre and provocative work over six decades defies categorization. 

No other photographer has ever been published as much as Helmut Newton and some of his most iconic images have become part of our collective visual memory. Yet the German-Australian photographer left behind an oeuvre so uniquely influential and iconic that every systematic effort to come to terms with it, with even the slightest claim to comprehensiveness, is doomed to failure.