Julius Shulman: Difference between revisions

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On December 16, 2007 Shulman attended a showing of his architectural photography at the Los Angeles Public Library<ref>[http://www.lapl.org/events/shulman/index.html Los Angeles Public Library]</ref>. The exhibit, sponsored by The Getty Center <ref>[http://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/shulman/ The Getty Center]</ref>, includes one hundred fifty photographs documenting architectural changes in Los Angeles for the last eighty years. This progression includes the re-development 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 spot-lighted 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.
 
Julius Shulman's images of Californian architecture have burned themselves into the retina of the 20th century. A book on modern architecture without Shulman is inconceivable. Some of his architectural photographs, like the iconic shots of Frank Lloyd Wright's or Pierre Koenig's remarkable structures, have been published countless times. The brilliance of buildings like those by Charles Eames, as well as those of his close friend, Richard Neutra, was first brought to light by Shulman's photography.
 
The clarity of his work demanded that architectural photography had to be considered as an independent art form. Each Shulman image unites perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building's surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs.
 
Today, a great many of the buildings documented by Shulman have disappeared or been crudely converted, but the thirst for his pioneering images is stronger than ever before.
 
==References==