Léon Constantiner didn’t just collect Helmut Newton photographs, he was obsessed with them. At one point he owned 560 of the photographer’s works: the most beautiful, the most important, the most unexpected. Three years ago, with Helmut gone and Leon seeking a change, he sold it all at Christie’s. To mark the occasion of the Grand Palais retrospective, Leon shares with La Lettre one hundred of Newton’s masterpieces, accompanied by a tribute to the man he so loved:
“Many dream, when they are children,of meeting their heroes.
Some heroes are fantastic characters from far away planets, unknown worlds, with super magic powers than can save humanity from disaster.
No doubt, we all have heroes, people that we admire, we emulate and wish we had their “superpowers”.
Others, when they get to meet their heroes are disappointed because they find out they are not what they expected. Their dream falls apart.
Others, the worst kind, stop having heroes. They stop dreaming, they don’t realize that he who stops dreaming stops creating, stops being a child. That is the saddest part of the human being.
I had the great fortune to meet Helmut Newton; he himself was a child, he never stopped dreaming, he the “Master”, never stopped having heroes and other people he admired.
As BIG and GREAT as he was, he was humble enough to admit he loved the work of other GREAT photographers.
He also admired the way I collected his work. He made me feel GREAT. He showed me his kind and human side.
He understood the passion and devotion I dedicated to collect, archive, and display his work. He respected me for being discrete, never bragging about my treasures even though in a few circles, people would refer to me as the “largest collector of his work in the world”.
We had mutual admiration for each other. The few differences were that he was and still is my HERO, that I collected his work, that I revered his creativity, talent, ingenuity and invention and that he IS one of the true geniuses in photography of all times.
Perhaps I admire him because he shot the most beautiful girls or the way he staged them Maybe it was the fact that as GREAT as he was, a pair of jeans, a leather jacket and a pair of sneakers made him feel comfortable.
An extravagant man of simple needs, limitless talent and a quirky, maybe dark, maybe off the wall, but for sure a sexy sense of humor.
Explosive yet kind. Impetuous but patient to achieve the perfect shot and print. I guess geniuses are like that. We see them, we admire them but we have difficulty trying to understand and explain.
I miss him dearly. The world needs more Helmut Newtons, but he was the THE ONE AND ONLY.”
Léon Constantiner
