Australian portrait photographer June Newton dies at 97

<p>BERLIN &mdash; The Australian photographer and actress June Newton — also known under her pseudonym Alice Springs — has died at 97, the Helmut Newton Foundation said Saturday in Berlin.</p>
<p>Newton, who was also the wife of the late photographer Helmut Newton, died Friday in her home in Monte Carlo. The cause of death was not given.</p>
<p>“We mourn the loss of an outstanding person and internationally recognized photographer,” the foundation wrote on its website.</p>
<p>Newton, who was born as June Browne in Melbourne, Australia in 1923, trained as an actor and often performed under her stage name June Brunell, the foundation said.</p>
<p>In 1947, she met Helmut Newton, a German-Jewish photographer who had fled the Nazis and who had just set up a photo studio in Melbourne. They got married a year later and were together until the 83-year-old Helmut Newton died in a car accident in Los Angeles in 2004.</p>
<p>In 1970, after having moved to Paris with her husband, Newton started her own career as a photographer under the pseudonym Alice Springs and soon became a well-regarded artist herself focusing on portraits.</p>
<p>“Alice Springs does more than document the appearance of celebrities and anonymous contemporaries; she captures their charisma, their aura,” the foundation said, describing her work. “Her eye for people is mostly concentrated on people’s faces.”</p>
<p>The couple had several shows around the globe. In 1978, she had her first solo exhibition of portraits in Amsterdam, followed by further international shows.</p>
<p>“The roster of artists, actors and musicians depicted by Alice Springs over the last 40 years reads like a who’s who of the international cultural scene on both sides of the Atlantic,” the foundation said. “Many portraits were magazine assignments from Paris to Los Angeles; others resulted from private initiative.”</p>
<p>In 1981, the couple moved to Monte Carlo. After her husband’s death, Newton opened the The Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin, which her husband had established a few months before his death. Until her death, she was the president of the museum, which has become an important location for contemporary photography shows.</p>