 First edition cover | |
| Author | Helmut Newton |
|---|---|
| Country | Germany |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Photography |
| Published | 1999, Cologne |
| Publisher | Taschen |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 464 (1999 edition) |
| ISBN | 3822863947 |
SUMO is a book series by publishing house TASCHEN, so named due to their size. [1]
The first SUMO was written by German-Australian photographer Helmut Newton. The book is a monograph that showcases his work in fashion and celebrity photography. Featured portraits include Catherine Deneuve, Nicolas Cage and Mickey Rourke. The book is credited with changing the fortunes of Taschen. [2]
It was initially released as a limited edition of 10,000 copies in 1999, selling for $1,500. The first run was numbered and signed by Newton. In keeping with its title, the book weighed over 30 kilograms (66 lb) and measured 50 by 70 centimetres (20 in × 28 in). Owing to the size and weight of the book, a bespoke stand was designed by Phillipe Starck to support it. The first copy of the book was signed by 80 of the celebrities featured in it. This was subsequently sold at auction in Berlin on 6 August 2000 for $430,000, becoming the biggest and most expensive book produced in the 20th century. [3] [2] [4] [5] [6]
A subsequent edition, edited by Newton's widow June, was released in September 2009. Although oversized, it was much smaller, measuring about 12 by 17 inches. This edition came with a perspex stand to display it and retailed for $150.
Other books belonging to the SUMO series include:
Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt Taschen and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen.
Helmut Newton was a German-Australian photographer. The New York Times described him as a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-and-white photos were a mainstay of Vogue and other publications."
David Hockney is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.
Richard Kern is an American underground filmmaker, writer and photographer. He first came to prominence as part of the cultural explosion in the East Village of New York City in the 1980s, with erotic and experimental films like The Right Side of My Brain and Fingered, which featured personalities of the time such as Lydia Lunch, David Wojnarowicz, Sonic Youth, Kembra Pfahler, Karen Finley and Henry Rollins. Like many of the musicians around him, Kern had a deep interest in the aesthetics of extreme sex, violence and perversion and was involved in the Cinema of Transgression movement, a term coined by Nick Zedd.
David LaChapelle is an American photographer, music video director and film director. He is best known for his work in fashion, photography, which often references art history and sometimes conveys social messages. His photographic style has been described as "hyper-real and slyly subversive" and as "kitsch pop surrealism". Once called the Fellini of photography, LaChapelle has worked for international publications and has had his work exhibited in commercial galleries and institutions around the world.
Mario Eduardo Testino Silva OBE HonFRPS is a Peruvian fashion and portrait photographer.
Peter Lindbergh was a German fashion photographer and film director.
Eric David Kroll is an American photojournalist, fetish photographer, erotica historian, and book editor.
Robert Carlos Clarke was a British-Irish photographer who made erotic images of women as well as documentary, portrait, and commercial photography.
Christopher David Killip was a Manx photographer who worked at Harvard University from 1991 to 2017, as a Professor of Visual and Environmental Studies. Killip is known for his black and white images of people and places especially of Tyneside during the 1980s.
Lynn Goldsmith is an American recording artist, film director, celebrity portrait photographer, and rock and roll photographer. She has also made fine art photography with conceptual images and with her painting. Books of her work have been published by Taschen, Rizzoli, and Abrams. In 1985, she received a World Press Photo award. In the 1980s, she wrote songs and performed as Will Powers. In 2023 Goldsmith was part of a U.S. Supreme Court case dealing with the limits of fair use concerning a series of Andy Warhol silkscreen portraits based on a Goldsmith photo of the musician Prince.
June Newton was an Australian model, actress, and photographer. As an actress she was known professionally as June Brunel or Brunell and won the Erik Award for Best Actress in 1956. From 1970 onward she worked as a photographer under the pseudonym Alice Springs. Her photographs have appeared in publications such as Vanity Fair, Interview, Elle and Vogue.
Benedikt Taschen is a German publisher and contemporary art collector. He is the founder and managing director of the publishing house Taschen, one of the most successful international publishers, with illustrated publications on a range of themes including art, architecture, design, film, photography, pop culture, and lifestyle.
Olga Rodionova is a Croatian-Russian model, actress and TV presenter.
Philipp Keel (*1968) is a Swiss artist, author, filmmaker and publisher.
Bigger Trees Near Warter or ou Peinture en Plein Air pour l'age Post-Photographique is a large landscape painting by British artist David Hockney. Measuring 460 by 1,220 centimetres or 180 by 480 inches, it depicts a coppice near Warter, Pocklington in the East Riding of Yorkshire and is the largest painting Hockney has completed.
Frank De Mulder is a Belgian photographer.
Steve Schapiro was an American photographer. He is known for his photographs of key moments of the civil rights movement such as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom or the Selma to Montgomery marches. He is also known for his portraits of celebrities and movie stills, most importantly from The Godfather (1972) and Taxi Driver (1976).
Peter Schlesinger is an American artist, author, and former artist's model, perhaps most well known for being the subject in numerous notable canvases by the British painter David Hockney.
Physique Pictorial is an American magazine, one of the leading beefcake magazines of the mid-20th century. During its run from 1951 to 1990 as a quarterly publication, it exemplified the use of bodybuilding culture and classical art figure posing, as a cover for homoerotic male images, and to evade charges of obscenity.