“Architect Richard Neutra once told Julius Shulman, ‘a house is stationary. A photograph I can take and show the world,’” recalls Eric Bricker.
St. Louis son Bricker (Parkway West, ’88) is bringing his documentary on Shulman, the “world’s most important architectural photographer,” to the St. Louis International Film Fest this month. Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman is chock-full of gorgeous black-and-white and color photographs of buildings from the middle of the last century. Some of the shots are iconic views you might recognize, but you probably didn’t know that the same man is responsible for so many of them. Shulman started taking photos of Modernist buildings that intrigued him in the ’30s. Soon, the likes of Neutra, Frank Lloyd Wright and Mies van der Rohe had given him all the work he could handle. He would go on assignment, discover even more unusual buildings, shoot them and spread the word about them among a community of magazine editors and adventurous architects, explains Bricker. “He was like a talent scout,” he says. “He shot a lot in Oklahoma, Kansas and Iowa, and he would show photos of new buildings he’d found to people on the coasts, and he really helped to advance the careers of a slew of Midwest architects.”
Still, it is Shulman’s quiet advocacy of the “Southern California lifestyle” in the ’50s and ’60s that would secure his legacy. A single black-and-white photo, “Case Study House No. 22, Los Angeles, 1960. Pierre Koenig, Architect,” conjures a whole world of tinkling jazz, cocktail dresses, cosmopolitan nights and the sultry allure of living in a glass-walled home perched high in the hills of L.A. (And it is this photo and similar ones by Shulman that routinely lead filmmakers behind period pieces like L.A. Confidential to seek out Neutra and Koenig houses for dramatic shots.)
Bricker notes Shulman made his mark by doing more than shooting buildings; he also filled his interior shots with snappily dressed models.
“These are spaces meant to be occupied by people,” explains Bricker, “and people help you envision the scale of the space and imagine yourself there. Julius was like a set designer. He hired models or used clients or the wives of clients, and he knew just where to put them.” And apparently, still does. At 97, Shulman still photographs about one new project each week.
Visual Acoustics screens on November 22; call Cinema St. Louis at 314-289-4150 or visit cinemastlouis.org for ticket and venue information. And don’t miss Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Midcentury, currently on exhibit at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, which features a number of Shulman images.
