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Last night, Los Angeles lost a true Angeleno. Photographer Julius Shulman, 98, died last night, according to an LA Times breaking news e-mail alert. Shulman was a blunt--yet hilarious--critic of architecture and he showed the works he loved through his work. In a new documentary about Shulman, screened in Los Angeles at Dwell on Design, he would call most of the city's housing design style a pile of junk. The audience burst out laughing.
"It's a simple but true statement that Julius Shulman is the most important architectural photographer in history," begins the trailer for the documentary, Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman. (it's a fabulous and fun documentary, we recommend catching it when it comes back to town).
Case Study House No. 22, found in the Hollywood Hills, may be one of Shulman's most notable photographs and what the LA Times called "arguably the most iconic image of midcentury L.A." in an article about the house and the family who lived in it a couple weeks ago.
Rest in peace, Julius Shulman. You will not be forgotten.
Update: Here is the LA Times obituary.
