Lives Of The Rich and Famous

American photographer Slim Aarons was the preeminent chronicler of American and European society in the postwar period. He photographed "attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places."

Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger at Leixlip Castle, County Kildare, Ireland, 1968.
Faithfull and Jagger had attended an open-air performance by the Chieftains before a banquet at the
castle, the Georgian estate of the Honourable Desmond Guinness, conservationist and author.
Photograph: Slim Aarons

The actress Mara Lane at the Sands hotel, Las Vegas, 1954. Lane appeared in more than 30 films
from 1951 to 1965. Slim took these photographs from the top of a Las Vegas ladder truck.
He was forever asking hotel managers and homeowners if he could see the view from a building’s
highest floor. If he had to arrange more than a few people from on high, he favoured using a bullhorn,
if available, and could never resist jovially booming to all down below, ‘This is the voice of God!’
Photograph: Slim Aarons.

Laure de La Haye‐Jousselin at the gates to her château in Normandy, 1957. Slim waited four days
in the village of Saint‐Aubind’Écrosville to get this shot. Once the scene was set, he not only
managed to get the subject to engage with the camera, but got her horse and two dogs
to cooperate as well. As Slim’s longtime friend and editor Frank Zachary observed,
‘Slim managed to get the horse to raise his hoof. A real, honest‐to‐God 17th‐century portrait.’
Photograph: Slim Aarons.
Slim Aarons: Women, introduced by Laura Hawk is published next month by AbramsMore here

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