Alexandra, masked and dressed by the seaside, Monte-Carlo, 1981; Alexandra, masked and nude by the seaside, Monte-Carlo, 1981

This pair of images is from a series in which Newton posed his models in the same situation naked and dressed. He first explored the idea in a location fashion shoot for Vogue Italia, published in October 1981 and a second, more ambitious fashion shoot for Vogue Paris. This latter feature was shot in the magazine’s Paris studio and involved four models and in one, now celebrated pair, ‘Sie Kommen’, the four were caught in mid-movement walking towards the camera. The feature was published in November 1981.

‘Alexandra, masked, naked and dressed’, was shot in Monte Carlo in 1981. The naked image was selected by Newton for his landmark October-November 1981 exhibition of nudes at the Galerie Daniel Templon in Paris and appears in the accompanying book, titled simply Helmut Newton (Editions du Regard, Paris). The first English-language edition was published the following year as 47 Nudes (Thames and Hudson, London). In his introductory essay, which features four examples of the naked and dressed series, Karl Lagerfeld notes that ‘The symbolism of the pairs of pictures is important to [Helmut]. Acknowledging that ‘Helmut hates anecdotal associations’, he is shrewdly suggesting that it is for the viewers to make what they will of these striking, wilfully disconcerting diptychs.