This story is from Texas Monthly’s archives. We have left it as it was originally published, without updating, to maintain a clear historical record.

“Isn’t it wonderful that foreign places always look the way you imagine them,” Helmut Newton said one night while walking through a livestock barn at the Travis County Stock Show. “You go to Tahiti, and it looks just like a Gauguin. You go to Texas, and it’s a scene from Dallas or Giant.”

For Newton, a European who has captured the public imagination by translating private, often dark fantasies into compelling photographs, Texas meant power—tycoons, people who were larger than life. He had photographed royalty, the rich, the famous, and some of the most beautiful women in the world. He had shocked the worlds of fashion, art, and photography when he published photos of fashion models coming down the runway, first dressed, then nude. Personally a charming, cultivated man, he brought the kink of sadomasochism to fashion photography and made pictures that were art. But nothing struck Newton as more exotic than Texas, and nothing was more romantic than the Texas millionaire.

Robert Mosbacher, Sr., is an independent Houston oil and gas producer, the chairman of Mosbacher Energy Company, and a world-champion sailor.
Photograph by Helmut Newton
Trammell Crow, real estate developer and founder of the Trammell Crow Company, is at ease before the Dallas skyline.
Photograph by Helmut Newton
Caroline Hunt Schoellkopf, of the Mansion on Turtle Creek and the Remington on Post Oak Park, towers over a model of the Crescent, her new Dallas project.
Photograph by Helmut Newton
H.R. “Bum” Bright is a Dallas financier, general partner of the Dallas Cowboys and director of the Bright Banc Savings Association.
Photograph by Helmut Newton
Gerald D. Hines, nationwide developer, is pictured beside RepublicBank Center, his latest Philip Johnson building in Houston.
Photograph by Helmut Newton
Lynn Sakowitz Wyatt is an international socialite, Houston’s reigning hostess, and one of the best-dressed women in the world.
Photograph by Helmut Newton
John B. Connally, former governor of Texas and presidential candidate, is at home in his West Austin real estate development.
Photograph by Helmut Newton
Walter Mischer, Sr., real estate tycoon and Houston power broker, relaxes at his Central Texas ranch in front of a mural of his West Texas ranch.
Photograph by Helmut Newton