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. 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.

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

At 18 years old, Aarons enlisted in the United States Army, worked as a photographer at the United States Military Academy, and later served as a combat photographer in World War II and earned a Purple Heart. Aarons said combat had taught him the only beach worth landing on was "decorated with beautiful, seminude girls tanning in a tranquil sun." [1] Hawk writes in her introduction, “Slim’s visual narratives give us an intime glimpse into the world of the upper classes and their rituals in the pursuit of leisure. That his half century of work continues to captivate successive generations of admirers—and that this is the fifth book published of his photography—reveals not only a yearning for an irretrievable time gone by but also a universal fascination with the seeming forbidden worlds of wealth and privilege.” 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 ]

PARTY MIX | An outtake from Slim Aarons’s iconic shoot at the Kaufmann Desert House, designed by Richard Neutra, in Palm Springs, California, 1970. Photo: Slim Aarons Aarons, Slim; Sweet, Christopher (2005). Slim Aarons: A Place in the Sun. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-0810959354. After my conversation with Slim’s daughter, who tells me she’s just hours into her Christmas holiday which she will spend cozy at home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, surrounded by snow and a fire, she speaks with her mother for more details about her photogenic but unpleasant Christmas swim. Her memories play out like a sepia-tinged highlights reel of Hollywood’s golden age. a b c d Martin, Douglas (June 1, 2006). "Slim Aarons, 89, Dies; Photographed Celebrities at Play". The New York Times. p.A23.

Slim Aarons: Women – lives of the rich and famous

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 ]Walker, Tonya (2008). "Rich, Attractive People In Attractive Places Doing Attractive Things". Virginia Commonwealth University. {{ cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= ( help)