Eye Opener
t’s little surprise that shots from Slim Aarons’ 1961 trip to India showcase the serene and the lavish, rather than the hustle and bustle as she glides through lily pads on the Jhelum River, near Srinagar in the Kashmir Valley. He also stopped in on India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, who he snapped perfectly posed in his silver motorcade. Aarons is among the most famous society photographers in history, with a stylised, richly coloured aesthetic that is instantly recognisable and much emulated. Working for magazines such as and , he made his subjects look beautiful and rich, shamelessly laying out their wealth and privilege - sometimes literally (he might ask an heiress to move the contents of her bedroom to her lawn, for example). This skill - and a good dose of personal charm - earned him access to the most exclusive enclaves of the Cote d’Azur, Newport and Palm Beach. But Aarons started his career on a very different path, as a military photographer during the Second World War. As he told before his death in 2006, “After you’ve seen a concentration camp, you really don’t want to see any more bad things.” So, by the time magazine asked him to shoot the Korean War, he had decided that, “I’ll only do a beach if it has a blonde on it.” That choice created a legacy that is an unparalleled and absorbing record of mid-century decadence.
