Born June Browne in Melbourne, Australia, in 1923, she trained as an actress and had numerous engagements under the pseudonym June Brunell. In 1947 she met Helmut Newton, who had just set up a photo studio in Melbourne, and married him a year later. In 1956, she was awarded the Australia’s Erik Kuttner Award for best theater actress. In 1970, after having moved to Paris with her husband, she started her own career as a photographer under the pseudonym Alice Springs, and soon became a well-esteemed published artist herself. While her first book was published in 1983, she worked and oversaw Newton’s publication White Women as art director in 1976, and subsequently all of Helmut Newton’s other books and exhibition catalogues. Two years later, her portraits were presented for the first time in a solo exhibition in Amsterdam, to be followed by numerous presentations worldwide. In 1981 Helmut and June Newton left Paris and moved to Monaco. Around 15 years later, their iconic series Us and Them was born, published as a book and later transformed into a large exhibition, touring worldwide
In 2004 June Newton published her autobiography Mrs. Newton. The same year, Helmut Newton died, while the Helmut Newton Foundation was still under construction, leaving her the task to complete it. With tremendous energy, she took on this task, and in Summer 2004 she opened the museum. Afterwards, as President of the Helmut Newton Foundation, she developed the museum in Berlin to a unique place for photography, hosting many of the most important contemporary photographers of our time. She died in Monte Carlo n 2021, aged 97.
