Palm Springs Rodeo
Slim Aarons · 1970
From € 250.00 Including VAT
About this work
Palm Springs Rodeo, January 1970
On the left in the arena a rider leans back on a bucking horse, one arm high in the air. Behind him stands the white wooden grandstand with the lettering Palm Springs and Mounted Police, hung with half rosettes in red, yellow, green and blue. At the top, spectators lean over the railing; on the sand, men in cowboy hats stand by the numbered fences, watching.
According to the caption, spectators watch from the stand as a contestant rides a bucking horse at the Palm Springs Mounted Police Rodeo in Palm Springs, California, in January 1970. Slim Aarons stood directly opposite the grandstand. Strikingly, the action sits at the edge: horse and rider are pushed to the left, while the grandstand with its letters and numbers takes the middle like a backdrop. So the photograph is as much about watching as about riding.
- Photographer
- Slim Aarons
- Collection
- Slim Aarons
- Country
- USA
- City
- Palm Springs
- Year
- 1970
- Reference
- 52432995
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
