Julius Shulman - Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, California - image-1

Lot 17 D

Julius Shulman - Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, California

Auction 1142 - overview Cologne
29.11.2019, 13:30 - Photography
Estimate: 10.000 € - 15.000 €
Result: 12.400 € (incl. premium)

Julius Shulman

Case Study House #22, Los Angeles, California
1960

Black and white photograph on RC paper, printed 1999. 75.8 x 60.8 cm. Signed and dated in felt tip pen lower right. From an edition of 60 Taschen edition, Cologne. - Framed under glass.

The photograph shows the residential home, erected in 1959 by Pierre Koenig, of the American Football player C.H. Buck Stahl in Los Angeles' Hollywood Hills. It was published as 'Case Study House Nr. 22' by the Arts & Architecture magazine in the June issue of 1960. The 'Case-Study-Houses' (CSH) programme initiated and supported by the architectural magazine, was intended to present experimental forms of living and novel building materials to a broader American public. The house is an example of the successful use of steel constructions in the building of domestic residences - the property was regarded as undevelopable due to its hillside location - and became an icon of modern Californian architecture par excellence. In 2008 it received a prize for the 'best house of all time in Los Angeles' - probably not least because of Julius Shulman's spectacular photographs supporting this claim.
Julius Shulman is regarded as one of the most important architectural photographers of post-war modernism in the USA. He became known, above all, through the CSH series, in particular with his photographs of the houses of Pierre Koenig, Richard Neutra, and John Lautner. With these, he decisively shaped our present image of the modern American lifestyle of the sixties and seventies.
His photographs, mostly taken in medium or large format, show a high level of craftsmanship and precision, which is expressed, above all, in large-format prints such as this one. At the same time, they are characterised by a high atmospheric density, appearing like a James Bond film adaptation of the time. With his architectural photographs, Shulman made a congenial contribution not only to the work of the architects, but also to the formation of today's image of the modern America of the Kennedy era.

Literature

Joseph Rosa, A constructed View. The Architectural Photography of Julius Shulman, New York 1994, ill. on front coverl and p. 55 with ill.; Julius Shulman, Photographing Architecture and Interiors, Los Angeles 2000, ill. p. 82; Peter Gössel (ed.), Julius Shulman. Architektur und Fotografie, Cologne i.a. 1998, ill. p. 3; Hunter Drohojowska-Philp et al. (ed.), Julius Shulman. Modernism Rediscovered 2. 1958-1964, Cologne i.a. 2007, ill. pp. 456