Slim Aarons
'Chalet Costi, Zermatt, Switzerland, ' Estate Edition
1968

Name: 'Chalet Costi, Zermatt, Switzerland, ' Estate Edition
Brand: Slim Aarons
Price: 2500 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

This vibrant snowscape by Slim Aarons depicts skiers outside the Chalet Costi in Zermatt, 1968. The skier on the left wears white pants and a crisp red jacket, and the skier on the left wears vibrant orange. Vintage skis lean against the warm wood entrance, and two drinks with festive lemon wedges are set on the table for apres-ski. Behind the chalet rises a snowy mountain peak. A classic winter scene from an iconic midcentury photographer. Chromogenic Lambda print Slim Aarons Estate Edition of 150 Embossed and hand-numbered with two certificates of authority Printed Later 6 sizes available 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. The Slim Aarons Estate has released the limited Estate edition as a Lambda print, which is a modern c-type print. They have chosen Lambda prints for their sharpness, clarity, colour saturation and quality, compared to archival inkjet prints. Lambda printing gives a true continuous tone. Photograph is unframed. Slideshow includes a close-up of the Slim Aarons estate's stamp. Collector will get the next number in the edition. Slim Aarons was born and raised in New York City and New Jersey and later New Hampshire. He took up photography as a teenager. At the age of eighteen, he enlisted in the U. S. Army and was later appointed official photographer at the United States Military Academy at West Point. During World War II he served as an army combat photographer for Yank magazine in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. After the war he became a freelance photojournalist, first based in Hollywood, then Rome, then New York. His photographs appeared in many magazines, including Life, Holiday, Town & Country, Look, Venture, and Travel & Leisure. His first book A Wonderful Time (1974) is considered a classic.

Creator:

Slim Aarons (1916-2006, American)

Creation Year:

1968

Dimensions:

Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 20 in (50.8 cm)

Medium:

Lambda

Movement & Style:

Realist

Period:

1960-1969

Framing:

Framing Options Available

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Los Angeles, CA

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU14810295312

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Slim Aarons

American photographer Slim Aarons captured the 20th century’s international jet set — U.S. socialites, European royalty, Hollywood stars — at play in sun-kissed locales like Monaco, Saint-Tropez and Palm Beach, as well as other luxurious settings around the globe.

Committed to eschewing makeup and artificial lighting, Aarons created images that are at once candid and polished, combining the relaxed posture of his subjects, who trusted him to document their lives, with the visual sharpness of a seasoned art director. Having gotten his start taking pictures for the U.S. military magazine Yank during World War II, he contributed over the course of his career to Life, Town and Country and Holiday magazines and published several books.

Aarons was born in Manhattan in 1916. He joined the army at 18, shooting military maneuvers at West Point before serving as a combat photographer, for which he was awarded a Purple Heart. After the war, he moved to California and began snapping socialites and movie stars. In the 1950s, he opened a bureau for Life magazine in Rome, where he took pictures capturing the postwar scene. Aarons was always able to win the trust of his elite subjects, who saw him as close to a peer, rather than a paparazzo. In a 2002 interview with The Independent, he remarked, ''I knew everyone. They would invite me to one of their parties because they knew I wouldn't hurt them. I was one of them.'' This access allowed Aarons to document the rich and famous with their guard down, reading newspapers and magazines, talking on the phone, relaxing by the pool, and chatting with friends. The 1957 photograph The Kings of Hollywood, for example, which won him wide acclaim, shows Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart laughing together as they celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Many of Aarons’s best-known images involve games and sports. In the 1972 Poolside Backgammon, two young women play the board game of the title against the backdrop of a majestic Acapulco estate. In 1958’s Cannes Watersports, a couple attempts to glide across the Golfe de la Napoule on Jet Skis, one expertly and one hanging on for dear life. And in Penthouse Pool, shot in Athens in 1961, a young woman wearing a yellow bathing cap smiles coyly at the camera, surrounded by friends and brightly colored seat cushions, with the Acropolis faintly visible in the background. Among Aarons’s books are 1974’s A Wonderful Time: An Intimate Portrait of the Good Life, and its 2003 sequel, Once Upon a Time. His final book, A Place in the Sun, was published in 2005, one year before his death.

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