He obviously became close to some of these people,” he added. “He photographed subjects as they came up through society and then photographed their children decades later. These are long-term relationships… but he was also very (much) of a fly on the wall and always kept that professional distance. Slim Aarons’ most memorable images: Celebrating the ultimate society photographer on the anniversary of his death The championship swimmer and movie star Esther Williams poolside in Florida, circa 1955. Williams was the darling of both the aquatic and the film worlds. Unable to compete in the 1940 Olympic Games because of the war, she joined Billy Rose’s Aquacade in San Francisco, where she swam with Tarzan star Johnny Weissmuller—a five-time Olympic gold medallist himself – and caught the attention of MGM scouts. At the pinnacle of her movie career, from 1945 to 1949, the actress dubbed ‘the Million Dollar Mermaid’ had at least one film in the top 20 box office hits each year. Photograph: Slim Aarons/Getty. Caption: Laura Hawk She was freezing and mad. It looks idyllic now, but to get it just right in a cold and dirty pool took a while.”

Slim Aarons, ‘Poolside Gossip Recreating the Iconic Photo by Slim Aarons, ‘Poolside Gossip

MacDonell, Nancy (2007). In the Know: The Classic Guide to Being Cultured and Cool. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0143112600.I've always loved the 60's and 70's. This book reminded me of why I loved that time period. The decadence of the clothing, jewelry and surroundings seems unparalleled to this day. Friedman, Alice T. (2010). American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300116540. I didn’t do fashion,” the photographer once said. “I did the people in their clothes that became the fashion.” After the war, Aarons moved to California and began photographing celebrities. In California, he shot his most praised photo, Kings of Hollywood, a 1957 New's Year's Eve photograph depicting Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper, and James Stewart relaxing at a bar in full formal wear. The book presents the women who most influenced Aarons’s life and work—and the other remarkable personalities he photographed along the way—including Audrey Hepburn, the Duchess of Windsor, Diana Vreeland, Esther Williams, Marianne Faithful, and Marlene Dietrich, all featured in unforgettable photographs. The collection contains more than 250 images, the majority of which have not appeared in previous books, along with detailed captions written by one of Aarons’s closest colleagues, Laura Hawk.

Slim ‘She Was Freezing and Mad’: The Story Behind This Famous Slim

Aarons was born to Yiddish-speaking immigrants who had lived in a tenement on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. His father, Charlie Aarons (born Susman Aronowicz), distanced himself from the family; his mother, Stella Karvetzky, was sent to a sanitarium. Not knowing what had become of his parents, Aarons spent his boyhood at varying times with an aunt, at an orphanage, and with his grandmother and cousins in New Hampshire. [2] Photography career [ edit ] Peretz, Evgenia (27 January 2014). "Inside the world of Slim Aarons". The Hive . Retrieved 2017-11-09.Herein lies what Waldron described as the difference between fashion and style – between the transient and the timeless. Indeed, Aarons appeared unconcerned about his subjects’ wardrobes or the trends of the day.

Slim Aarons’s Photography Caught the Elite in Their Habitats Slim Aarons’s Photography Caught the Elite in Their Habitats

Slim Aarons: Women explores the central subject of Slim Aarons’s career—the extraordinary women from the upper echelons of high society, the arts, fashion, and Hollywood.Walker, Tonya (2008). "Rich, Attractive People In Attractive Places Doing Attractive Things". Virginia Commonwealth University. {{ cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= ( help) Aarons, Slim; Sweet, Christopher (2005). Slim Aarons: A Place in the Sun. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-0810959354. I’m going to have fun photographing attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places, and maybe take some attractive photographs as well.” In 2017, filmmaker Fritz Mitchell released a documentary about Aarons, called Slim Aarons: The High Life. [9] In the documentary it is revealed that Aarons was Jewish and grew up in conditions that were in complete contrast to what he told friends and family of his childhood. Aarons claimed that he was raised in New Hampshire, was an orphan, and had no living relations. After his death in 2006, his widow and daughter learned the truth that Aarons had grown up in a poor immigrant Yiddish-speaking family on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. As a boy his mother was diagnosed with mental health issues and admitted to a psychiatric hospital, which caused him to be passed around among relatives. He resented and had no relationship with his father and had a brother, Harry, who would later commit suicide. Several documentary interviewees postulate that if Aarons's true origins had been known, his career would have been unlikely to succeed within the restricted world of celebrity and WASP privilege his photography glamorized. [ citation needed] Death [ edit ] My problem with flipping through Slim Aarons books, is that while his photos are amazing, they look better online than they do in print.