Slim Aarons

Slim Aarons was born George Aarons in 1916. He earned his nickname first in the US Army where his tall, slender good looks marked him out from the other squaddies. The army was where he honed his photographic skills as combat snapper. He later said that war taught him the only beach worth landing on was "decorated with beautiful, seminude girls tanning in a tranquil sun."

After World War II Slim travelled across America, picking up assignments from big magazines of the era such as Life, to photograph celebrities and high-flyers. He famously never used a stylist or a make-up artist on any of his shoots. Instead, he said just photographed "attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places."

In 1974 a book was published which captured Aarons's photography prints at its colourful best. It was called A Wonderful Time and it was a thick hardback which - at the time - sold only modestly. It wasn't until a decade or two later that his photos really began to accelerate in value by which time the original books were changing hands for many hundreds of dollars. Now, you can expect to pay in excess of $2,000 for a mint condition copy of his art prints.