Slim Aarons

December 1, 2003
Aarons, erstwhile photographer to the rich and famous, has combed his archives to compile a collection of slick, upscale snapshots that vividly capture the lives of the"polo set." After the violence he witnessed as a combat photographer in WWII, Aarons decided that the only beaches he wanted to invade in the future were"decorated with beautiful girls tanning in a tranquil sun"--which are amply presented here. Aarons imparts a nearly tactile quality to these razor-sharp images, and every photograph, from the 1950s through the 1980s, is richly evocative of its era. One 1955 photo captures longtime fashion icon C.Z. Guest poolside in typically modest mid-century swimming attire with her son and dogs. A 1964 spread for Town & Country pictures the deeply tanned"young matrons of Palm Beach" in day-glow floral Lilly Pulitzer dresses. In a 1968 picture, fellow photographer Lord Lichfield is shown on the Italian Riviera wearing groovy yellow pants and flanked by Pucci-clad Italian princesses. Aaron's caption notes that"a photographer's life without a wife" seems to agree with the young cousin to Queen Elizabeth. While much of Aarons' work is focused on"horsey" types, he also turns his lens on creative folks. A dashing Gore Vidal is pictured at his Italian villa, the late Gianni Versace is shown at work in his home on Lake Como and Wanda Horowitz, daughter of Arturo Toscanini, is photographed at her father's podium at La Scala opera house in Milan. Aarons' gossipy captions, which accompany each photograph, help make this striking volume a voyeur's dream. 250 color photographs

September 3, 2012
Like Abrams’s previous three collections of Slim Aarons’s photography, this handsomely compiled art book devotes itself to a guiltless celebration of beauty and privilege, centering on the land best suited to such worship—Italy. According to Aarons’s one-time colleague Sweet, Italy may have been the late photographer’s favorite subject, a place where he felt instantly at home with everyone from a shopkeeper to a moviemaker. Save for a portrait of Lamberto Maggioriani, the working-class, non-professional star of The Bicycle Thief, however, the reality documented here tends to be exclusively well-bred and well-heeled. But in case any browser is moved toward envy, Sweet is quick to point out that Aarons’s lens on the world was not a thoughtlessly blinkered one. He first saw Italy, in fact, as a Yank magazine combat photographer, suffering wounds in the bloody Anzio invasion. When Italy entered the first flush of postwar prosperity, Aarons was quick to leave Hollywood for Rome. The black and white photographs from this period feature the likes of Orson Welles and Louis Armstrong, but the collection’s real focus is not on showbiz royalty but on Italy’s actual aristocracy, captured in color at home or on holiday. Sumptuous images from the 1940s to the 1990s amply represent an artist who found his life’s work among the leisured. Photos.

Starred review from November 7, 2005
Flipping through the azure, emerald and sun-kissed pages of "golden age" celebrity photographer Aarons's third collection of images, it's hard not to feel a certain nostalgia, even if a backyard wading pool is as close as one ever got to the Cap d'Antibes. For as devotedly as Aarons documented the glamorous lives of the now all-but-vanished jet set—for magazines like Life
, Holiday
and Town and Country
in the '50s, '60s and '70s—he was also witness to a time when the relationship between the "Beautiful People" and the rest of us was mostly one of uncomplicated envy and admiration. Oh, sure, some bitter Trotskyist might have objected to the godlike image of a nonchalant Kirk Douglas water-skiing with his hands on his hips, but many people were happy to gaze upon these photos of dewy poolside heiresses and arcadian Rolls-Royce desert picnics. Aarons himself had been through WWII; is it any wonder, then, that when asked to cover Korea, he replied that "the only beach was interested in landing on was one decorated with beautiful seminude girls tanning in a tranquil sun"? In an age when celebrities have increasingly become the objects of ridicule and disgust, of "inside" gossip and intrusive speculation, Aarons's lushly appointed and tenderly chronicled world looks more attractive than ever.