Fan Mail
Slim Aarons · 1952
From € 250.00 Including VAT
About this work
Fan Mail, Beverly Hills 1952
Marilyn Monroe sits on the edge of a gray sofa, reading a single letter with her mouth half open, the rest of the mail forgotten around her. She wears a red negligee with a long hem of black lace, from which one leg emerges. Envelopes lie on the cushions, in a wicker basket and all over the floor; beside the sofa stand a lamp and a telephone.
Marilyn Monroe was sorting her fan mail in Beverly Hills in 1952, according to the caption. She is not looking at the camera but at one letter, as if that one sender briefly has all her attention. That averted gaze makes the picture quieter than the scene suggests: amid the stacks of envelopes this is a moment of reading, not of posing. The demure little paintings on the wall change nothing about that.
- Photographer
- Slim Aarons
- Collection
- Slim Aarons
- Country
- USA
- City
- Beverly Hills
- Year
- 1952
- Reference
- 674383917
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
