Slim Aarons Photo Baron Boy, 1957

Slim Aarons Photo Baron Boy, 1957

The youngest peer in England, seven year old Thomas Alexander Fermor-Hesketh, 3rd Baron and 10th Baronet Hesketh, fishing in the lake at his ancestral home Easton Neston House in Northamptonshire.

Endeavor Edition. All photographs are authorised by the Slim Aarons Archive.

Slim Aarons (1916-2006)

Why Are Slim Aarons Prints So Popular?

Although he himself liked to define himself as the photographer of “attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places”, there is much, much more in Slim Aarons’ photographs.

Slim Aarons was one of the twentieth century’s most prolific documenters of celebrity and socialite life. Over six decades, Aarons photographed some of the world’s most beautiful people in some of the globes most desirable destinations: jet-setting from Beverly Hills to Capri to the French Riviera, Aarons snapped the likes of the Kennedy family, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, and Grace Kelly. However, life wasn’t always cocktails in exotic locations for Aarons. The photographer began his career photographing soldiers in combat during World War II, for which he received a Purple Heart.

The visual language that Aarons developed became a byword for luxury, often mimicked in the twin worlds of fashion and adverting as the peak of aspirational life-styling. Though Aarons’ photographs could pass for a Vogue shoot, the artist himself worked without stylists or artificial lighting, capturing his subjects in their own clothes and settings for an air of authenticity.

Slim Aarons was raised in New York and New Hampshire and began his photography career while in the Army and before long was appointed the official photographer of the United States Military Academy at West Point. When war broke out, he was sent as a combat photographer for Yank magazine and saw action from North Africa to the Middle East to Europe, witnessing the fall of Tobruk and the liberation of Rome.

After leaving the army, Aarons became a freelance photojournalist. Slim worked for the leading magazines of the day including Life, Holiday, Town & Country, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Travel & Leisure, traveling often to attend parties in Beverly Hills or on Park Avenue, spending winters in Gstaad or Palm Beach, summers on the French or Italian riviera or all around the Caribbean. Slim Aarons was very much at ease and on familiar terms with the world’s elite and he brought to his portraits a freshness and certain élan that they greatly appreciated. As a result, Slim was welcomed into the exclusive retreats of the world’s glitterati and his imagery attains a degree of intimacy approaching that of family photos.

In recent years, the influence of his work has been increasingly acknowledged and he is now regarded as one of the most influential photographers of his generation. Slim Aarons prints depicting swimming pools, rich people and fashion are increasingly sought after by collectors from all over the world

Measurement:	33 x 42 cm
Measurement with frame:	53.5 x 42 cm