Four Kings Of Hollywood
Slim Aarons · 1957
From € 250.00 Including VAT
About this work
Four Kings Of Hollywood, Beverly Hills 1957
Four black-and-white frames sit side by side on a strip of film, numbered 11 through 14, with the words Kodak Safety Film along the edge. In each frame four men in tailcoats and white bow ties stand at a bar crowded with glasses. From frame to frame the postures shift: heads turn toward each other, there is laughter, a glass goes up.
On December 31, 1957, Slim Aarons photographed the film stars Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper and James Stewart at a New Year's Eve party at Romanoff's in Beverly Hills, as they laughed together at a joke. The caption calls this a digital composite of four shots. The sequence is what makes the picture: where a single photograph captures a pose, four consecutive frames show how a joke travels through a group.
- Photographer
- Slim Aarons
- Collection
- Slim Aarons
- Country
- USA
- City
- Beverly Hills
- Year
- 1957
- Reference
- 56184282
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
