White Pagoda
Slim Aarons · 1970
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About this work
White Pagoda, Pagan circa 1970
From a high white terrace you look out over a row of small white stupas with pointed spires. In the niches stand monks in orange-red robes, each in his own arch. Farther off a larger white structure rises from a plain of shrubs and sandy paths, and on the horizon dark temples stand among the trees, under a blue sky with white clouds.
According to the caption, work began in 1044 on a site of sixteen square miles at Pagan, Burma, on some 15,000 pagodas, temples and palaces; the white pagoda of the title is, per that caption, the Ananda, built in 1091. Slim Aarons took the picture around 1970. It works through repetition: white against blue, and in the niches the orange-red of the monks. That rhythm continues across the plain, where the temples stand among the green like distant echoes.
- Photographer
- Slim Aarons
- Collection
- Slim Aarons
- Country
- Myanmar
- Year
- 1970
- Reference
- 3065089
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
