Saturday, December 6, 2008

Julius Shulman Photos

Shorpy has put up several photos taken midcentury by Julius Shulman--like this one of the Spencer Residence in Santa Monica, 1950. Strapless cocktail dresses were clearly in that year, and yes, that's a TV screen half-open in the table. Those are also cigarettes in those manicured hands.

Besides Shorpy, though, KCET hosts a page on Julius Shulman that has links to his 2005 talk with Huell Howser, an essay on his work by Wim de Wit, a list of the Case Study Houses he photographed between 1946 and 1966 (no links to the photos, but the famous picture bottom right is one of those Case Study Houses--#22, the Stahl House), and this link to the Getty Exhibition on Shulman that ran in 2005-2006.

If you want to see a dozen of his photos on one page, there's a New York Gallery that displays and sells them. (Unfortunately, the photos aren't labeled.)

There's also an online exhibit at USC's site called "L.A. Obscura: The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman." From that I learned that Shulman's career took off in 1936 (he was only 26!) when he met Richard Neutra after taking some Kodak pictures of the Kun house that Neutra liked.

Shulman taught himself photography, but later audited classes at UCLA and Berkeley. I bet the other students would have rather he taught them.

He celebrated his 98th birthday in October.

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