Slim Aarons | Poolside

Over the course of a career lasting half a century, Slim Aarons (1916-2006) portrayed high society, aristocracy, authors, artists, business icons, the celebrated and their milieu. In doing so, he captured a golden age of wealth, privilege, beauty and leisure that occurred alongside—but quite separate from—the cultural and political backdrop of the second half of the Twentieth Century. Slim 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, and he received a Purple Heart.