'Ali in Training' by R. McPhedran, Archival Photograph by Getty, 20 x 30
Located in San Rafael, CA
McPhedran/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we offer premium quality prints scanned from the original negatives and plates from Getty’s dar...
Photographic Paper
Erich Auerbach 'Walking the Dog' Archival Photograph by Getty 20x30
By Erich Auerbach
Located in San Rafael, CA
An embossed Getty Images Archive stamp is applied to the lower right margin for authentication purposes.
Photographic Paper
Erich Auerbach 'Walking the Dog' Archival Photograph by Getty 20x24
By Erich Auerbach
Located in San Rafael, CA
An embossed Getty Images Archive stamp is applied to the lower right margin for authentication purposes.
Photographic Paper
Michael Ochs 'Brigitte Bardot' Archival Photograph by Getty, 30 x 40
By Michael Ochs
Located in San Rafael, CA
(Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we offer premium quality prints scanned from the original negatives and plates from Getty’s darkr...
Photographic Paper
Erich Auerbach 'Walking the Dog' Archival Photograph by Getty - 16x20
By Erich Auerbach
Located in San Rafael, CA
An embossed Getty Images Archive stamp is applied to the lower right margin for authentication purposes.
Photographic Paper
$700
Joseph McKeown 'Need for Speed' Grand Prix Archival Photograph by Getty 30x40
By Joseph McKeown
Located in San Rafael, CA
Original Publication: Picture Post - 7209 - First Race Of The Mercedes - A Ruthless Triumph - pub. 1954 (Picture Post/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we...
Photographic Paper
$895
Joseph McKeown 'Need for Speed' Grand Prix Archival Photograph by Getty 40x60
By Joseph McKeown
Located in San Rafael, CA
Original Publication: Picture Post - 7209 - First Race Of The Mercedes - A Ruthless Triumph - pub. 1954 (Picture Post/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we...
Photographic Paper
$350
Joseph McKeown 'Need for Speed' Grand Prix Archival Photograph by Getty 16x20
By Joseph McKeown
Located in San Rafael, CA
Original Publication: Picture Post - 7209 - First Race Of The Mercedes - A Ruthless Triumph - pub. 1954 (Picture Post/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we...
Photographic Paper
Darth Vader - Oversize Getty Archive Print
Located in London, GB
May The Force Be With You....always. :) Print issued by the Getty Images Archive London.
Black and White, Archival Pigment
Midtown Manhattan Night
Located in London, GB
Artist Unknown via Getty Images Archive London England Cityscape.
C Print, Color
Price Upon Request
Peter and Lilly Pulitzer, Palm Beach, Florida
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
Silver Gelatin
Price Upon Request
Peter and Lilly Pulitzer in Palm Beach, Florida
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Esther Williams in Pool, Florida, circa 1955
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Island Paradise
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Armando's Beach Club, Acapulco, Mexico, 1975
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Working On Water, 1962: Stan Freberg working in his swimming pool
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
C.Z.Guest, Villa Artemis, Palm Beach, 1955
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and house by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Gett...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Catherine Wilke, Capri, 1980
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Paul Bancroft of San Francisco, Pool at Puerto Vallerta, Mexico, 1979
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Penthouse Pool, 1961: Young women by the Canellopoulos penthouse pool, Athens
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
The Annual Eton-Harrow Match at Lord's, England 1955
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Catherine Wilke, Capri, 1980
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
I Call It Home, 1960: Donna Domitilla Ruspoli in the Palazzo Ruspoli in Rome
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Acapulco Villa, 1968: Las Brisas, the home of Eustaquio Escandon in Acapulco
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Plantation Cocoyer, 1982: People relaxing at Cocoyer Beach, Haiti
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Skiing Waiters, Stowe, Vermont
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Fontainebleau Hotel Guests, Miami, Florida, 1955
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Dip For Dolores, 1952: Dolores Del Rio swimming in Acapulco, Mexico
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and house by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Gett...
C Print
Price Upon Request
All Mine, 1968: Jim Kimberly and his wife beside Lake Worth, Florida
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Fontainebleau Car Park, Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami, Florida
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Pool At Carvoeiro, July 1970: Holidaymakers round a pool, Carvoeiro, Portugal
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Joan Collins Relaxes, 1955
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Peggy Guggenheim, September 1978: in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, Venice
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Il Canille
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
On The Beach In Bermuda
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
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Peggy Guggenheim at the Palazzo Venier Dei Leoni, Venice, Italy
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
John F. Kennedy with Shirley Rogan Ellis and Betty LoSavio, Montego Bay Airport
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
Silver Gelatin
Price Upon Request
Family Snapper: Babe Paley and William Paley at their cottage in Round Hill
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
In the Lobby of the Lord Tarleton Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Howard Hughes at Howard Hawks’ East/West Croquet Match
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Good Shot: Marion B (Jo) Carstairs, Little Whale Kay, Bahamas
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Catherine Wilke, Capri
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
C.Z. Guest with Joanne Connelly in Palm Beach
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
C.Z. Guest with Consuelo Vanderbilt, Palm Beach
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Hotel Taormina Pool
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Haywood Magee 'Louis Armstrong on Stage' Archival Photograph 20x24
By Haywood Magee
Located in San Rafael, CA
(Photo by Haywood Magee/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we offer premium quality prints scanned from the original negatives and plates fr...
Photographic Paper
Haywood Magee 'Louis Armstrong on Stage' Archival Photograph 20x30
By Haywood Magee
Located in San Rafael, CA
(Photo by Haywood Magee/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we offer premium quality prints scanned from the original negatives and plates fr...
Photographic Paper
Bert Hardy 'Mountain Stage' Tour de France Archival Photograph 16x20
By Bert Hardy
Located in San Rafael, CA
Original Publication: Picture Post - 5381 - The Greatest Show On Earth - pub. 1951 (Picture Post/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we offer premium qualit...
Photographic Paper
Price Upon Request
Britt Ekland
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Porto Ercole, Italy Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and ...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Speedboat Landing
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Porto Ercole, Italy Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and ...
C Print
Haywood Magee 'Louis Armstrong on Stage' Archival Photograph 30x40
By Haywood Magee
Located in San Rafael, CA
(Photo by Haywood Magee/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) As an authorized Getty Images Gallery partner, we offer premium quality prints scanned from the original negatives and plates fr...
Photographic Paper
Price Upon Request
Ursula Andress
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Ursula Andress, 1955: The Swiss film star relaxes with artist Novella Parigini in a hammock in Rome Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owne...
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Price Upon Request
Lucy Ruspoli
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
St. Tropez Beach
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
The beach at Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Marina Piccola
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Dolores Guinness
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in London. All photographs are printed and authorized by the Get...
C Print
Price Upon Request
Sunbathers At Eden Roc
By Slim Aarons
Located in New York, NY
Sunbathers at the Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc, Antibes, France Staley-Wise Gallery offers photographic prints from the Slim Aarons Archive, owned and housed by Getty Images Archive in Lon...
C Print
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, Aarons opened a bureau for Life magazine in Rome, where he took pictures capturing the postwar scene. He 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, Aarons 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 him 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.
Find a collection of vintage Slim Aarons photography on 1stDibs.
Find a broad range of photography on 1stDibs today.
The first permanent image created by a camera — which materialized during the 1820s — is attributed to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The French inventor was on to something for sure. Kodak introduced roll film in the 1880s, allowing photography to become more democratic, although cameras wouldn’t be universally accessible until several decades later.
Digital photographic techniques, software, smartphone cameras and social-networking platforms such as Instagram have made it even easier in the modern era for budding photographers to capture the world around them as well as disseminate their images far and wide.
What might leading figures of visual art such as Andy Warhol have done with these tools at their disposal?
Today, when we aren’t looking at the digital photos that inundate us on our phones, we look to the past to celebrate the photographers who have broken rules as well as records — provocative and prolific artists like Horst P. Horst, Lillian Bassman and Helmut Newton, who altered the face of fashion and portrait photography; visionary documentary photographers such as Gordon Parks, whose best-known work was guided by social justice; and pioneers of street photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who shot for revolutionary travel magazines like Holiday with the likes of globetrotting society lensman Slim Aarons.
Find photographers you may not know in Introspective and The Study — where you’ll read about Berenice Abbott, who positioned herself atop skyscrapers for the perfect shot, or “conceptual artist-adventurer” Charles Lindsay, whose work combines scientific rigor with artistic expression, or Massimo Listri, known for his epic interiors of opulent Old World libraries. Photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron was given a Kodak camera as a child. Later, she shot on Polaroid film before buying her first 35mm camera in her teens. Barron's stunning portraits of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Warhol and other artists chronicle a crucial chapter of New York’s cultural history.
Throughout the past two centuries, photographers have used their medium to create expressive work that has resonated for generations. Shop a voluminous collection of this powerful fine photography on 1stDibs. Search by photographer to find the perfect piece for your living room wall, or spend some time with the work organized under various categories, such as landscape photography, nude photography and more.