Penthouse Pool
Slim
Aarons
About this photograph :
Penthouse Pool
The photograph was taken in Athens, in a villa belonging to Paul and Alexandra Canellopoulos. The scene which gathers several young women takes place around an outdoor swimming-pool. While the Acropolis stands out in the background, the photograph also evokes the classical theme found in Naiade art. The five female figures are sitting around the pool. They are comfortably sitting on yellow and red cushions and mattresses around the blue pool water. The presence of the three primary colours gives perfect harmony to the group. The natural light caresses their tanned skin and profound tranquillity emanates from this vision. Three of the women are looking at the lens whilst the other two others don’t seem at all worried about it. The young women are not posing but are unpretentiously open to the camera. Here, everything is luxury, calm and delight, as if it could not be otherwise. (1961)
About the artist :
Slim
Aarons
Slim Aarons whose real name is Georges Allen Aarons enlists in the American Army at the age of 18. He becomes a photographer at the West Point Military Academy then a reporter during the Second World War. Regarding his participation in the conflict, which nevertheless earns him a Medal of Honour, Aarons simply says that the only beach worth landing on is the one adorned with ravishing young semi-clad girls, sun-bathing peacefully in the sun.
From 1950 to 1980, he becomes a Jet Set photographer and dedicates himself to the depiction of Hollywood glamour and luxury. The figures are exclusively celebrities, photographed in luxurious surroundings, often around a swimming-pool, in their own home. He constructs his career by only photographing attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places. In 2002, he proclaims to The Independent newspaper: «I knew everyone, they invited me to their parties as they knew that I would not cause them any harm. I was one of them».
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