SURFER gURL was looking to price a new TV on the Web, but ended up in eyestorm.com, which resembles an online art gallery, pondering a purchase of a Helmut Newton print – a tasteful nude.
Newton’s edgy, R-rated photos have appeared in magazines like Vanity Fair and the New Yorker.
But now the famed German fashion photographer has shot a series titled “Cyberwomen” to sell on the ‘Net.
In the cyberspace gallery, people can view an image, click on it and set it as wallpaper for their PCs.
Or they can buy limited-edition silver prints with an official printed signature for $500 each.
It took a lot of convincing to get the artist on the Web. The 79-year-old Helmut has never even surfed.
But David Grob, a former gallery owner and eyestorm.com co-founder, showed Newton the site, which features more than 30 artists, including cow-splitting and formaldehyde-dunking Damien Hirst, Ralph Gibson and Robert Mapplethorpe.
One can buy an Andy Warhol Polaroid of O.J. Simpson for $9,000. The site also has editorial material about museums, artists and galleries, including London’s new Tate Modern.
Grob persuaded Newton, who discontinued all gallery sales last year, to sell his work on the site.
Grob suggested they dig into the vast Newton archives, but Newton had other ideas.
“I thought that was a little too easy,” he explains. “I needed a raisond’etre.” So he conceived the “Cyberwomen” series of seven images, which he shot in Hollywood.
These are classic Newton black-and-white nudes; women photographed with guns or standing next to a refrigerator in the kitchen.
But except to sell his photographs, Newton won’t go near the Web.
“I’m so busy doing things the old-fashioned way,” he says, noting he works from 6:45 a.m. to 9:30 at night.
What he means by the old-fashioned way is creating photos with film and paper. He’s intrigued by and has investigated digital photography, but his friends tell him it’s not up to par yet.
“They say it wouldn’t please me because the resolution isn’t great,” he says.
He doesn’t know how to use a computer and has no e-mail address. “I have a fax machine,” he says.
But Newton has jumped into the Internet gallery with both feet.
“You can’t get these pictures anywhere. You can’t see the actual print unless you buy it,” he says. “I thought that was a good idea for this fantastic new medium.”
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