Slim Aarons

Slim Aarons began his career as a military photographer

Slim Aarons was born George Allen Aarons in New York City on 29 October 1916. He spent his childhood in difficult and unsettled circumstances: his father Charlie Aarons, real name Susman Aronowicz, left the family at an early age, his mother Stella Karvetzky was sent to a sanatorium, and Slim Aarons lived alternately with an aunt, a grandmother and in an orphanage. Without knowing the exact whereabouts of his parents, he joined the US Army at the age of 18 and worked as a photographer at the military academy, and during the Second World War photographed the fighting, receiving the Purple Heart after being wounded. Aarons later said of his war experiences that the war had taught him that the only beach worth landing on was a beach with lots of sun and beautiful young girls. The artist followed this realisation when he moved to sunny California after the war.

Aarons’ most famous picture shows the kings of Hollywood

Slim Aarons achieved his most famous photo in 1857: The picture Kings of Hollywood was created on New Years’ Eve of that year and shows the Hollywood stars Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper and James Stewart in a bar. He subsequently remained closely connected to Hollywood; the celebrated director Alred Hitchcock, for example, used his apartment as a model for the home of the main character in his award-winning film Rear Window. Aarons published his pictures mainly in the magazines Life, Town & Country and Holiday, and consistently dispensed with the use of make-up artists or stylists in his work. He once said his career was based on beautiful pictures of beautiful people in beautiful places; the rich and beautiful honoured this and invited Aarons willingly to their parties because they knew that he would only show them in a favourable light. The photographer was either a silent observer or a glamorous orchestrator, as required, as in the famous picture Poolside Gossip, which showed a summer party thrown by Nelda Linsk at her estate in Palm Springs, built by Richard Neutra.

The photographer kept his roots a secret until his death

In 1997, Slim Aarons sold his entire photographic archive to Mark Getty (born 1960), the co-founder and chairman of the photo agency Getty Images. In 2017, the film Slim Aarons. The High Life by director Fritz Mitchell was released posthumously. It was this film that brought to light the fact that the photographer came from a poor, Yiddish-speaking immigrant family. He himself had only said that he had no living relatives and had grown up in an orphanage. He had kept quiet about his mother's psychological illness, his father's disregard for him and his brother Harry's suicide - probably with good reason: after the film was released, many Hollywood insiders expressed the belief that Slim Aarons' career would probably not have been possible if his biography had been known.

Slim Aarons died as a result of a stroke in Montrose, New York on 30 May 2006.