Newson was born in Sydney, Australia, and in 1984 he graduated at the Sydney College of the Arts in Sydney, Australia studying jewellery and sculpture. In 1986 he was awarded a grant from the Australian Crafts Council and staged a first exhibition featuring the Lockheed Lounge. The following year he moved to Tokyo, where he mostly worked with the designer company Idée and where he created works such as the Super Guppy lamp (1987) and the Orgone lounge (1989).He moved to Paris in 1991 where he set up a studio. He describes his 1988 Embryo Chair as "one of the first pieces where I hit upon a discernible style".