Welles In Biarritz
Slim Aarons · 1960
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About this work
Welles In Biarritz, September 1960
Orson Welles sits at a small café table with a blue placemat, in a dark jacket and shirt, and looks straight into the lens with a heavy, slightly skeptical gaze. One hand rests against his temple, a cigar between his fingers. In front of him stand two espresso cups, an upturned glass, a dish of sugar cubes and a red ashtray. Behind him the café blurs.
The American actor and filmmaker Orson Welles was sitting in a café in Biarritz in September 1960 when Slim Aarons photographed him. There is no setting that explains anything: two cups, a cigar, a man who does not smile. The picture rests entirely on the gaze, which looks back at the camera sternly and a little warily. As a viewer you feel watched rather than the other way round.
- Photographer
- Slim Aarons
- Collection
- Slim Aarons
- Country
- France
- City
- Biarritz
- Year
- 1960
- Reference
- 53397620
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
