Literature

“I met Slim Aarons in 2001 when I worked with him to create his first London show. It was at this time that we also placed his whole collection with Getty Images, which now owns the complete archive of his work.

During the two years I spent working with Slim Aarons, I had the opportunity to acquire some of the photographs that he had swapped with other photographers he knew. Amongst these there were many of the greats – W. Eugene Smith, Chim Seymour, George Silk, Andreas Feininger, Alfred Eisenstaedt - and many other eminent photographers that Aarons had worked with, including the legendary Henri Cartier-Bresson who remained a great friend of his for many years and who was one of the co-founders of the great MAGNUM press agency.

Cartier-Bresson always told me in subsequent years that Aarons had introduced him to his tailor and that all his suits were Slim’s fault!

One of the pictures we found in Aarons’ house in Katonah and which he subsequently gifted to me, was one of the most famous photographs of the 20th century. Everyone is familiar with Cartier-Bresson’s iconic image from 1954, of the young boy carrying two bottles of wine down the street in Paris, titled Rue Mouffetard.

Today it is arguably one of the top five most recognisable photographs of the 20th century. Strangely though, Cartier-Bresson made very few prints of this work at the time.

The story goes, that when Cartier-Bresson was mapping out his book, ‘Les Européeans’, he met with Slim Aarons in London where they shared an apartment on Clarges Street, in Mayfair.

Aarons advised Cartier-Bresson that any good book of photographs should start with a wonderful ‘opener’, have lots of ‘goodies’ in the middle, and a fantastic ‘closer’. Slim chose as the picture that would close the book, this irresistible image of the young boy, clutching two bottles of wine, as he skips along the Rue Mouffetard in Paris. Sure enough, if you open ‘Les Européeans’, the last page of the book is indeed that photograph. So, this little piece of history was decided on a sofa in Clarges St, London!

Photographers often swapped pictures between themselves, it was their way of paying homage to each other by choosing what they thought represented them well. I am delighted to still have this rare print of Rue Mouffetard, with its unusual and exceptional provenance, in my collection.

Having researched this work with the assistance of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation in Paris, we can confirm that surprisingly the Foundation does not have a vintage print of this seminal image in its collection – a fact that establishes quite how rare this print is. The only other vintage work that we have been able to trace of this picture is in the Sir Elton John collection.

The print has wonderful legends and stamps to its verso. It has the Complimentary Magnum stamp which is one of the rarest of the Magnum stamps. It also signed ‘Hank Carter’ by Cartier-Bresson, which was the pseudonym he used when travelling. He always signed his hotel register with this ‘nom de plume’ – a name given to him by Slim!

The print is dedicated to Madame Slim Aarons and also includes the line - ‘Pierre Gassman did the rest’ on the verso. Gassman was Cartier-Bresson’s printer at the Picto laboratory in Paris. It is an extraordinary print on double weight paper; and is now being presented at AIPAD to the collectors’ market for sale for the very first time in its 71 year history.

The wonderful back story is a bonus to what could be called one of the greatest trophy pictures of the 20th century.”

- Michael Hoppen, 2023