SLIM AARONS – PHOTOGRAPHER
2016-11-14Slim Aarons made a career, in his words, “photographing attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.” His subjects were the beautiful and the celebrated, the rich and the powerful, high society and aristocracy. Slim Aarons captured their image for the picture magazines throughout the second half of the twentieth century. In doing so he defined the image of the Beautiful People, the international Jet Set who strode the world’s stage in the postwar decades.
As a chronicler of the good life, as lived by the upper classes and aristocracy in the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s, Slim Aarons has no peer. He was a classic outsider looking in, and as such he idealized the rich. The women are beautiful and exquisitely dressed, the men handsome and poised. The houses, shown in detail, range from European palazzos and castles to Palm Beach palazzos to suburban and Southhampton castles. Though we may catch a whiff of boredom and perhaps a lack of purpose in his subjects, the overwhelming luxury of their surroundings and ease of their lives may cast such doubts aside.
Opposite – Poolside Glamour, 1970
Exhibition runs through to November 26th, 2016
Staley-Wise Gallery
560 Broadway
New York
NY 10012
