Podcast summary

The photographer whose photographs serve as visual records for this city's dramatic evolution discusses his life and creative process. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Julius Shulman's Los Angeles, at the Central Library's Getty Gallery October 6, 2007-January 20, 2008

Participant(s) Bio

Julius Shulman was born in Brooklyn on October 10, 1910 and moved to Los Angeles with his family at the age of ten. Photography went from a hobby to a professional occupation for Shulman in 1936, when he was exposed to modern architecture for the first time on a visit to Richard Neutra's Kun House in the Hollywood Hills. Neutra was so impressed with his photos of the home that he immediately hired Shulman to photograph additional projects, thereby launching an unanticipated, prolific career.

Shulman's images promoted the work of numerous visionary architects including Neutra, Rudolph Schindler, John Lautner, and Pierre Koenig. Decades after the initial prints were created, Shulman's scenes continue to herald the beauty and functionality of modern architecture.

Wim de Wit is the Head of Special Collections & Visual Resources, and Curator of Architectural Collections at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. He studied architectural history at the Catholic University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. He moved to the United States in 1982, where he worked at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum as a guest curator for an exhibition about the Amsterdam School, a group of Dutch architects of the early twentieth century. From 1983 until 1993, he was the curator for architecture at the Chicago Historical Society, where he organized such exhibitions as "Louis Sullivan, the Function of Ornament" and "Grand Illusions: Chicago's World's Fair of 1893."

Related library holdings