Bad Luck Gloria
Slim Aarons · 1951
From € 250.00 Including VAT
About this work
Bad Luck Gloria, New York 1951
A man in a suit presses a kiss to the temple of a woman in a small veiled hat, who lifts her head toward him and smiles. Beside them sits a woman with curly hair and a velvet choker, looking down with a small smile at the Oscar statuette in front of her. Behind her a man in glasses looks aside. Everything is black and white, grainy and close.
Actor Jose Ferrer consoled Gloria Swanson after she lost the Oscar for best actress, while the winner, Judy Holliday, sat beside her with her statuette. It was March 29, 1951, in the nightclub La Zambra at 127 W. 52nd Street in New York, during a live radio link with the ceremony in Los Angeles. The photograph holds two feelings in one frame: consolation on the left, quiet pride on the right, separated by the statuette itself.
- Photographer
- Slim Aarons
- Collection
- Slim Aarons
- Country
- USA
- Year
- 1951
- Reference
- 3143202
The photographer
Photographing attractive people who were doing attractive things in attractive places.
George Allen Aarons, born in New York, served as a military photographer in World War II and subsequently transitioned to print journalism. Whereas he previously documented the war, he deliberately chose the opposite subject: the leisure time of the rich and famous, in breathtaking settings.
His most famous photograph, The Kings of Hollywood (1957), encapsulates what he sought in all his portraits: glamour, charisma, and celebrity, captured in a relaxed manner.
Aarons won the trust of the people he photographed, thereby gaining access to some of the most intimate and candid portraits of the twentieth century. In 2007, Getty Images published the book Poolside With Slim Aarons , crowning his legacy.
- Born October 29, 1916 , New York
- Died May 29, 2006 , Montrose, NY
- Hulton Archive / Getty Images
