ARTstor Digital Library
Getty Research Institute: Julius Shulman Archive
Overview
ARTstor is collaborating with the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute to share approximately 5,000 images of modern architecture from the archive of architectural photographer Julius Shulman (1910-2009). The archive spans the career of Julius Shulman from 1936 to 1997 and documents the development of modern architecture in Southern California. In 1936, Shulman photographed Richard A. Neutra's Kun House in Los Angeles, CA. Through his relationship with the architect, Shulman secured other commissions to document the work of California-based architects such as R. M. Schindler, Raphael Soriano, Gregory Ain, J. R. Davidson, John Lautner, and Pierre Koenig, among others. From 1945 to 1966, Shulman photographed projects from the Case Study House Program, an experimental program sponsored by the magazine Arts & Architecture. This program commissioned major architects, such as Richard Neutra, Raphael Soriano, Craig Ellwood, Charles and Ray Eames, Pierre Koenig, and Eero Saarinen, to design inexpensive and innovative single-family homes during the post-World II housing boom. Shulman's most famous work is the photograph for Case Study House No. 22, the Stahl House designed by architect Pierre Koenig. In this seminal image, two stylish women are shown chatting in a living room, as the glass-walled, cantilevered structure of the house juts out over the side of Laurel Canyon, revealing the bright lights and street grid of Los Angeles below. The collection will also be available as high-resolution downloads for academic publishing; for more information, please see Images for Academic Publishing.
Shulman is acclaimed for such iconic images of mid-century modern buildings, which were carefully composed with elegant models, minimalist furnishings, and dramatic landscapes. Over the course of his career, Shulman created one of the most comprehensive visual records of the development of modern architecture within the urban fabric of Los Angeles and the changing landscape of Southern California. The collection in ARTstor will represent highlights from the Julius Shulman photography archive, which comprises more than 260,000 negatives, prints, transparencies, and related printed material.
Julius Shulman's photographs have been widely published. He also authored several monographs about his work, including: Photography of Architecture and Design: Photographing Buildings, Interiors, and the Visual Arts (1977); Architecture and its Photography (1998); Photographing Architecture and Interiors (2000); and Malibu: A Century of Living by the Sea (2005). In 1969, the American Institute of Architects awarded Shulman the AIA Gold Medal for Architectural Photography and later made him an honorary member in 1987.
The J. Paul Getty Trust is dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts. Its Research Library collections include over one million books, periodicals, study photographs, and auction catalogs as well as extensive special collections of rare and unique materials in selected areas of art history and visual culture. Predominately works on paper, these collections include rare books, prints, and photographs. Archives, manuscripts, sketchbooks, and albums provide perspectives on artistic production, illuminating intellectual exchanges that fostered creative collaborations. More recent acquisitions focus on art and architecture in Southern California, revealing Los Angeles's significant role in the postwar era. In addition to the Julius Shulman archive, the Research Library will also share the Alexander Liberman photography archive through ARTstor for scholarly and educational use. Both archives will join two other Getty Trust collections: The J. Paul Getty Museum Collection and the Research Institute's Study Photographs of European Tapestries.
Collection information
| Total size of collection* | 500 |
|---|---|
| Percentage of completion | 0% |
* Image totals should be regarded as an approximation until a given collection is 100% complete. Users should also bear in mind that the number of images available to them may vary from country to country, reflecting ARTstor’s approach to addressing an international copyright landscape that itself varies from country to country.
Last updated: May 10, 2012
