 |
 |
Julius Shulman: Desert Modern
This exhibition is organized by Palm Springs Art Museum
and curated by Michael Stern
No individual has been a more comprehensive visual narrator of the evolution of modern architecture in Southern California than photographer Julius Shulman. Masterful in his sensitivity to light, form and detail, Shulman captured the essential elements of the buildings he was photographing with beauty and insight. His dazzling photographic work turned buildings into icons, chronicling the rise and fall of aesthetic styles and their historical context.
Julius Shulman: Desert Modern focuses on Shulman’s encyclopedic documentation of the modern architectural movement in the Southern California, especially in the Palm Springs area of California where noted architects integrated the desert landscape into their designs.
Home to movie stars and celebrities (featured projects include E. Stewart Williams’ Frank Sinatra House, and Paul Williams’ Lucille Ball/Desi Arnaz House), the Palm Springs area contains some of California’s finest Modern buildings including Richard Neutra’s masterpiece, the Kaufmann House.
The exhibition consists of approximately 100 photographs, in both color and black and white, of buildings by architects such as Richard Neutra, John Lautner, A. Quincy Jones, Paul Williams, E. Stewart Williams, Albert Frey, William Cody, Donald Wexler, and Palmer & Krisel. Also included are several original architectural renderings, as well as biographical and historical data about the architects that will begin each section of the exhibition. Enlarged facsimile prints of vintage magazine articles about the modern buildings photographed by Shulman accompany bound volumes of articles and images that showcased the Modernist style.
The exhibition marks the seventieth anniversary of Shulman’s first photographic assignment in the desert, that of Richard Neutra’s Grace Miller House, in 1938. The majority of the images in the exhibition have never been previously shown.
Image:
Raymond Loewy House, architecture by Albert Frey and Raymond Loewy, 1947. Courtesy of the artist.
 |
email | call Robin McCarthy at 626.577.9696 extension 300 |