The concrete high-rises, stucco-walled homes and abandoned gas stations of Los Angeles may not seem like prime examples of the city’s architecture, but for photographer and former UCLA student Julius Shulman, beauty can be found anywhere.
“In almost every building, I can find something of merit,” Shulman said. “There’s always quality work I can extract from the architecture.”
It is this philosophy that drives “Julius Shulman’s Los Angeles,” an exhibition that runs through Jan. 20 at the Los Angeles Central Library. With 70 years of Shulman’s work on display, Shulman’s photographs reflect his vision of homes, businesses and landmarks throughout Los Angeles.
“Every photograph has a statement, has a message. Just look at the photographs and observe what they show,” Shulman said.
The exhibit features 150 photographs chosen from the 70,000 piece archive of Shulman’s work at the Getty Research Institute. Getty curators Wim de Wit and Christopher Alexander selected pieces for which Shulman is famous and also lesser-known and even previously unpublished pieces from Shulman’s collection to reflect different perspectives on the city of Los Angeles.
“(Los Angeles) is a very complex city with a lot that’s happening with a deep history of its own. Architecture photography really can be a medium in which you can learn a lot about your immediate environment,” said de Wit, the Getty Research Institute’s curator of architectural collections and an architectural historian.
Views of “Julius Shulman’s Los Angeles” are presented in different photo groups, including Downtown Los Angeles, Bunker Hill, Century City, Wilshire Boulevard, well-known sites such as the Baldwin Theatre and the Watts Tower, and residential neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area.
Shulman moved to Los Angeles in 1920 at the age of 10, grew up in the city, and attended UCLA in 1929 as part of the first freshman class. Throughout his time at UCLA, Shulman photographically catalogued the metropolis’ evolution.
“While many people have photographed this city, very few have the comprehensive view of how the city has changed and grown so rapidly over the past century,” said Alexander, the Getty Research Institute’s associate curator of architecture.
While Shulman may be best known for his views of modern residential architecture, his shots of the lesser-documented parts of Los Angeles, as well as his different perspectives on famous sites, are what de Wit and Alexander hope will affect the viewers’ understanding of Los Angeles.
“I think that this is an exciting exhibition because the momentum has been building for a long time for a recognition and awareness of our architectural heritage in the city,” Alexander said. “We can add to this awareness, add to the promotion of this city and its culture and its environment … as well as the successful innovations that have occurred here.”
The captions of Shulman’s photographs in the exhibit also reveal whether the building photographed still exists.
“More times than not, people are excited that so many of these buildings ““ the majority, really, of what we’re showing ““ are still with us,” Alexander said. “There are people who have lived in L.A. all their lives who are literally walking down the gallery walls and going down memory lane … and they have that sense of perspective just as Shulman does, and by looking through his photos, it’s a window on their own lives and their own memories of the city and how they themselves have now grown with the city.”
Through Shulman’s exhibit at the Los Angeles Central Library, de Wit and Alexander hope students will learn from the collection.
“As they eventually go into the next stages of their lives, they can consider this a true profession, and they can be inspired to know that you can be a photographer and be successful,” Alexander said.
Shulman also hopes that aspiring photographers will come to understand the unconventional beauty Los Angeles offers.
“I tell most photographers to whom I give a lecture to leave their cameras at home,” Shulman said. “They tend to spend their time grabbing shots, but they need to analyze the building. … The foremost advice I can give is to learn to see the building and analyze it without the camera. Create a sensation.”