Slim Aarons (née George Allen Aarons; November 29, 1916 — May 30, 2006) was an American photographer known for his portraits of socialites, expatriates, and celebrities. He enlisted in the United States Army at the age of 18 and later worked as a combat photographer during World War II and was awarded the Purple Heart. Slim Aarons worked with the 8th Army Division as a photographer during World War II and this led to his career as a photographer.
He saw concentration camps and fighting at the Battle of Anzio in Italy where he was later wounded and given a purple heart (I gave it to a blonde friend after the war, she said she liked the color”, Vanity Fair said in 2003 year), but he began filming the atrocities later.
He did his work at LIFE and then in luxury publications such as Town and Country, Harper’s Bazaar and the now defunct Holiday as far away from combat as he could get; he was very careful with images and frames and just tried to take the best pictures he could get.
Before the idea of stardom took on a somewhat nasty connotation, he accompanied his subjects on their journeys to the French Riviera and Gstaad and he was also allowed to observe them in the seclusion of the gated settlements of Southampton and other luxury enclaves.
Over the course of his 50-year career, Aarons regularly collaborated with magazines such as Life, Town & Country, Vogue and Holiday and received an exclusive review of the lives of Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and Grace Kelly. Slim Aaron, whose charm has won the trust of movie and film stars and whose cameras captured fleeting golden images as his favorite characters played and paced in almost unimaginable seclusion today, died on Tuesday in Montrose, New York the photographs of Slim Aaron.
American photographer Slim Aarons has captured the international elite of the 20th century – American socialites, European royals, Hollywood stars in sun-drenched locations such as Monaco, Saint Tropez and Palm Beach – and other luxury destinations around the world – peace. Aarons combines the relaxed posture of people who relied on him to document their lives with the visual clarity of an experienced art director.
Aaron’s incredibly influential photographs of high society and socialites who are unambiguously their own selves continue to be a source of inspiration for modern style icons. I know that while serving in the army press office he had the opportunity to work and meet with many men and women who later became famous photographers and journalists.
His years in the army were his education in photography and his entry into the world outside New York and New England, including his work in the publications Town and Country, Holiday, Venture and LIFE. In 1953 the photographer acquired a charming 1782 cladding farm in Catona, New York.
After Slim’s death, a relative discovered that Slim was born in a poor Yiddish-speaking Jewish immigrant family on the Lower East Side, her mother suffered from mental illness and was hospitalized, while her younger brother tragically committed suicide. It was a dark reality that Slim had erased from his childhood accounts, not because he painted a partially fictional picture of his youth, but because of the loneliness she must have instilled in him.
Slim has amassed an extensive collection of images that hardly any other photographer has been able to achieve. His remarkable ability to gain access and trust from his subjects makes him an artist worthy of glorification. His most famous portrayal of The Four Kings of Hollywood, starring the laid-back Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart, was when Slim swooped them with stories of his failed auditions.
The photographs have proved so successful that the brand has now released limited edition prints available for sale online. The campaign represents a modern twist in Aaron’s work, depicting charming mid-20th century people and socialites with marijuana in the foreground. I posted this photo about a month ago, together with a recent photo by H&G that reminded me of Slim Aaron’s photo and I was wondering if the photographer wanted it to look like Aaron’s photo or just coincidence.
I asked Mary to write me a letter, and she not only sent a letter, but also invited me to the next retrospective in New York organized by Hearst Magazines and Getty Images. This was not necessarily a time when people wanted to spend $ 35 ($ 182.02 today) on a picture book that described a life that may have seemed out of reach.
