Slim Aarons: La Dolce Vita

Like Abrams’s previous three collections of Slim Aarons’s photography, this handsomely compiled art book devotes itself to a guiltless celebration of beauty and privilege, centering on the land best suited to such worship—Italy. According to Aarons’s one-time colleague Sweet, Italy may have been the late photographer’s favorite subject, a place where he felt instantly at home with everyone from a shopkeeper to a moviemaker. Save for a portrait of Lamberto Maggioriani, the working-class, non-professional star of The Bicycle Thief, however, the reality documented here tends to be exclusively well-bred and well-heeled. But in case any browser is moved toward envy, Sweet is quick to point out that Aarons’s lens on the world was not a thoughtlessly blinkered one. He first saw Italy, in fact, as a Yank magazine combat photographer, suffering wounds in the bloody Anzio invasion. When Italy entered the first flush of postwar prosperity, Aarons was quick to leave Hollywood for Rome. The black and white photographs from this period feature the likes of Orson Welles and Louis Armstrong, but the collection’s real focus is not on showbiz royalty but on Italy’s actual aristocracy, captured in color at home or on holiday. Sumptuous images from the 1940s to the 1990s amply represent an artist who found his life’s work among the leisured. Photos. (Nov.)