Julius Shulman (October 10, 1910 – July 15, 2009) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

architectural photographer best known for his photograph " Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, 1960.

Pierre Koenig Pierre Francis Koenig (October 17, 1925 – April 4, 2004) was an American architect and a Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California. He taught at the USC School of Architecture from 1964 until his death in 2004. H ...

, Architect." The house is also known as the

Stahl House The Stahl House (also known as Case Study House #22) is a Modern architecture, modernist-styled house designed by architect Pierre Koenig in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, California, which is known as a frequent set location in Ame ...

. Shulman's photography spread the aesthetic of California's Mid-century modern architecture around the world. Through his many books, exhibits and personal appearances his work ushered in a new appreciation for the movement beginning in the 1990s. His vast library of images currently resides at the

Getty Center The Getty Center, in Los Angeles, California, is a campus of the Getty Museum and other programs of the Getty Trust. The $1.3 billion center opened to the public on December 16, 1997 and is well known for its architecture, gardens, and views over ...

in Los Angeles. His contemporaries include

Ezra Stoller Ezra Stoller (16 May 1915 – 29 October 2004) was an American architectural photographer. Early life Stoller was born in Chicago, IL. but was raised and schooled in New York. His interest in photography began while he was an architecture student ...

and Hedrich Blessing Photographers. In 1947, Julius Shulman asked architect Raphael Soriano to build a mid-century steel home and studio in the Hollywood Hills. Some of his architectural photographs, like the iconic shots of

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

's or

's remarkable structures, have been published countless times. The brilliance of buildings like those by

Charles Eames Charles Ormond Eames Jr. (June 17, 1907 – August 21, 1978) was an American designer, architect and filmmaker. In professional partnership with his spouse Ray Kaiser Eames, he was responsible for groundbreaking contributions in the field of a ...

, as well as those of his close friends,

Richard Neutra Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. He ...

and Raphael Soriano, was first brought to wider attention by Shulman's photography. The clarity of his work added to the idea that architectural photography be considered as an independent art form in which perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape informs the photograph. Many of the buildings photographed by Shulman have since been demolished or re-purposed, lending to the popularity of his images.

Life and career

Julius Shulman was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

to Russian-Jewish parents on October 10, 1910, and grew up on a small farm in Connecticut before moving to Los Angeles while still a boy. He briefly attended the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and the

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, and earned pocket money by selling his photographs to fellow students.Andy Grundberg (July 17, 2009)
Julius Shulman, Photographer of Modernist California Architecture, Dies at 98
''

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''. In 1936 he returned to Los Angeles, where he was enlisted by a friend, working as a draftsman for Neutra, to take photographs of a new, Neutra-designed Kun Residence in Hollywood with his amateur Kodak Vest Pocket camera. When Neutra saw the pictures, he asked to meet the photographer and proceeded to give him his first assignments which assisted Shulman in launching his career in architectural photography. Shulman opened a studio in Los Angeles in 1950, by that time drawing much of his work from magazines based in New York. He remained in business full-time until the late 1980s. In 2000, Shulman gave up retirement to begin working with business partner Juergen Nogai.

Exhibitions

The Getty Research Institute held a 2005–2006 exhibition of Shulman's prints entitled "Julius Shulman, Modernity and the Metropolis".Getty Research Institute
Julius Shulman, Modernity and the Metropolis. October 11, 2005 – January 22, 2006.
Retrieved August 29, 2008. The exhibition included sections entitled "Framing the California Lifestyle," "Promoting the Power of Modern Architecture," "The Tools of an Innovator" and "The Development of a Metropolis". The exhibition traveled to the

National Building Museum The National Building Museum is located at 401 F Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is a museum of "architecture, design, engineering, construction, and urban planning". It was created by an act of Congress in 1980, and is a private Non-profit org ...

and to the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

. Julius Shulman and Juergen Nogai have had exhibitions at the Design and Architecture Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, in fall 2005 as well as an exhibition at the Barnsdall Municipal Gallery in Los Angeles 2006, Craig Krull Gallery Bergamot Station, Los Angeles, October 2007, and another show in spring 2009. An exhibition of their work is also scheduled in Mannheim, Germany, in 2010. On December 16, 2007, Shulman attended a showing of his architectural photography at the

Los Angeles Public Library The Los Angeles Public Library system (LAPL) is a public library system in Los Angeles, California. The system holds more than six million volumes, and with around 19 million residents in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area, it serves the large ...

. Organized by the Getty Research Institute, the exhibit included 150 photographs documenting architectural changes in Los Angeles over the past 80 years. This progression includes the redevelopment of Bunker Hill, the growth of Century City, the avant-garde architectural designs in Los Angeles such as Watts Towers, Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Getty Villa, as well as the growth of Wilshire Boulevard. The exhibition features the industrial engines at the Port of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles International Airport that helped fuel the growth of Los Angeles. Also featured, diverse residential fabric from Echo Park to South Los Angeles. The exhibit spotlighted Shulman's unique role in capturing and promoting innovative, sleek case study houses as well as the contrasting tract housing developments with repeated floor plans. In February 2008, the Palm Springs Art Museum presented "Julius Shulman: Palm Springs," guest curated by Michael Stern. Containing more than 200 objects, it is the largest Julius Shulman exhibition ever presented to date. In addition to photographs and renderings, illustrations and models of many of the buildings Shulman photographed were presented to complement his extensive documentation of a place that was so inspirational to him. Rizzoli published the accompanying catalog, "Julius Shulman: Palm Springs." Additionally, a documentary DVD was produced in conjunction with the exhibition "Julius Shulman: Desert Modern." Selected Shulman works were included in The Annenberg Space for Photography's inaugural exhibit, Los Angeles. One of his last commissioned works was of the Space, which opened in March, 2009, with Shulman in attendance. Shulman's last exhibition was scheduled for July 4 to August 8, 2009, but his death one week into the show caused it to be extended by two weeks. Shulman's daughter Judy Shulman McKee—along with Krull, Nogai, Benedikt Taschen and Wim de Wit—spoke at the Getty Center on Sunday, September 20, 2009 during a memorial to celebrate the life of Julius Shulman.

Film

Huell Howser Huell Burnley Howser (October 18, 1945 – January 7, 2013) was an American television personality, actor, producer, writer, singer, and voice artist, best known for hosting, producing, and writing ''California's Gold'' and his human interest sh ...

Productions, in association with

KCET KCET (channel 28) is a secondary PBS member television station in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is owned by the Public Media Group of Southern California alongside the market's primary PBS member, Huntington Beach–licensed KOCE-TV ...

/Los Angeles, featured Shulman in ''Julius Shulman – Palm Springs''. Shulman was the subject of a 2008 documentary film, ''Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman''. The film, directed by Eric Bricker and narrated by

Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is th ...

, explores Shulman's life and work. It discusses how Shulman's images helped to shape the careers of influential 20th-century architects, including

and

John Lautner John Edward Lautner (16 July 1911 – 24 October 1994) was an American architect. Following an apprenticeship in the mid-1930s with the Taliesin Fellowship led by Frank Lloyd Wright, Lautner opened his own practice in 1938, where he worked for th ...

. The film won the 2009

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Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature as well as awards at the Austin Film Festival, Newport Beach Film Festival and the Lone Star International Film Festival. The film was released theatrically by Arthouse Films across the U.S. late 2009 through early 2010.

Death and honors

In 1987, the Shulman House was designated a Cultural Heritage Monument by the city of Los Angeles. Shulman himself had a Golden Palm Star on the

Palm Springs Walk of Stars The Palm Springs Walk of Stars is a walk of fame in downtown Palm Springs, California, where "Golden Palm Stars", honoring various people who have lived in the greater Palm Springs area, are embedded in the sidewalk pavement. The walk includes po ...

dedicated to him in 2006. He died at his home in Los Angeles, California on July 15, 2009; he was 98 years old. He was buried at

Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery The Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary is a Jewish cemetery located at 6001 West Centinela Avenue, in Culver City, California. Many Jews from the entertainment industry are buried here. The cemetery is known for Al Jolson's elaborate tomb (design ...

Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most d ...

.Hillside Memorial
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Bibliography

* Head, Jeffrey (Summer 2007). “Shulman face to face” (interview with Julius Shulman), ''CA Modern magazine'', pp. 16–17 * Head, Jeffrey (Summer 2006). "A Conversation with Julius Shulman”, ''Case Study House #21'', pp. 9–12. Chicago, IL: Richard Wright * Leet, Stephen (2004). ''Richard Neutra's Miller House''. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press. . . * * * Stern, Michael (February 2008). "Julius Shulman: The Man Behind the Camera", ''Palm Springs Life'', pp. 80–91

References

External links

Union List of Artist Names, Getty Vocabularies.
ULAN Full Record Display for Julius Shulman, Getty Vocabulary Program. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California. * Finding Aid for Julius Shulman Photography Archive, Getty Research Institute {{DEFAULTSORT:Shulman, Julius 1910 births 2009 deaths Architectural photographers Photographers from California Modernist architecture in California Artists from Los Angeles American people of Russian-Jewish descent Jewish American artists 20th-century American Jews Burials at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery 20th-century American photographers 21st-century American photographers 21st-century American Jews