Slim Aarons is best known as a photojournalist. For nearly 40 years he featured socialites in their pursuit of happiness. His spotlight served magazine readers as a vicarious passport to sunny spots and mountain tops. The atmospherics were cordially clubby and catered to a closed-set of relations that understood the subtleties of cultural hierarchy like a liturgy.
Aarons was to post-war splendor as Margret Mead was to anthropology, as Jane Goodall is to primatology. The path to professional acclaim for the observers was to appreciate a society, note it’s behaviors and capture images of relevancy without judgement. To be successful, these archivists-of-domain were mindful they were guests of the parish, not parishioners. They may have visited the church, heard the sermon, but they remained aware they never fully understood nuances of complex doctrine as faithful practitioners did.
Unlike Truman Capote, banished by his Society-Swans for crossing unspoken boundaries in unspeakable ways, Slim protected and respected the subjects in his pedigreed address book.
Like cultivated pearls, Aarons’ ability to edit images of the social-register enhanced his string of freelance assignments. Left to a darkroom floor were taboos; unfortunate slides into addiction, domestic abuse and suspicions of sexual predation. He focused instead on the good-times of those who trusted him not to reveal human frailties but celebrate the fruits of hard labour.
Opting to flatter ‘social-lights’ Arrons framed his subjects carefully. With sensitivity his compositions avoided over-exposure. He mirrored the misty colored atmosphere of those who sailed through life changing passions with the seasons.

Redwood Library’s Opening Night Reception for “Slim Arrons Newport Days” in the James and Candace Van Alan Gallery

Slim Aaron’s Newport Days /Courtesy Getty Images
Distancing himself from unpleasantness was part Slim Aaron’s DNA. Born in a Lower East Side tenement to Yiddish speaking Susman Aronowicz and Stella Karvetzky, Slim’s youth was a series of still-life black and whites; a first-person witness to poverty and depression. His dad a deadbeat, his mom institutionalized with mental illness, Slim lived with an aunt, a grandmother, and in an orphanage.The cruel edge of photorealism softened after Aarons’ tour as a war photographer ended. He chose to colorize his adulthood by watching “attractive people do attractive things in attractive places.”
Childhood taught Slim sensitivity, the army taught him photography, but ambition to live a better life taught Aarons to become a reliably silent observer of an uncommon society.

Slim Aarons
His lens captured refinements. Architectural marvels were built to compliment cities, the seas, the mountains and pastimes of people of privilege.

Silent Auction :Slim Arron’s 40″X60″print : BAILEY”S BEACH : Suggested bid $12,500.to benefit the Redwood Library

Silent Auction : Slim Aarons’ 40″x 60″print: SURFING Suggested bid $12,500.00 to benefit the Redwood Library
Fashion was part of Aarons’ documentation. Sartorial statements accessorized venues with signature élan. Designed to be frivolous, glad-rags were part of the parlance of happiness.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy at the ‘April in Paris Ball” New York City, 1958
As our culture evolves it’s tempting to judge those photographed by Aarons as vapid caricatures of idle humanity. It’s easy to believe the halcyon days of this cloistered social-class are over. However superficial the images appear, they whisper of social responsibilities and profound philanthropic relevance.
Most of Slim’s sophisticated subjects lead lives of benevolence that benefitted society’s common-wealth. Without fanfare the social-circle, that in many cases inherited generational wealth, also inherited a steely work-ethic and belief in the mantra “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
After Jackie Kennedy served as First Lady of the United States she worked to preserve historic landmarks in New York and Newport. Topsy Taylor, continued her provocative social life while using her helicopter company to collect and distribute restaurant food to the needy. And,Tripler Pell is a Harvard and Brown educated physician working in primary-care and mental health services.
In contrast to self-aggrandizing social-influencers of today Slim Aarons was a stealthy social-observer. Reverentially, his chronicles left unsaid how social-lights brightened our culture and continue to do so.
Like the observations of Margret Mead and Jane Goodall, Slim Arrons photo-journals explore nuances of closed societies. It’s up to us to learn how the lessons of their liturgy can elevate our spiritual and social conciseness.
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