Talking about Shulman

With the passing on Wednesday of Julius Shulman, Los Angeles has lost one of its greatest unofficial historians and interpreters

When considered as a body of work, Shulman’s photographs – though ostensibly of architecture and buildings - tell a story of LA’s evolution through eras of artistic and social style.

Nobody can look at his iconic photograph of the Stahl House – the glass corner living room hovering over the city known as Case Study House Number 22 – without it evoking a strong, unmistakably Los Angeles feeling.

New York Times architecture critic Paul Goldberger says, aptly, that the image from 1960 sums up an entire city at a moment in time.

The media is full today of such appreciations and retrospectives of Shulman’s photographs, thousands of which were acquired by the Getty a few years ago. At our house this morning, the flowing memories of Julius Shulman were more personal.

When my wife was a five year old in pigtails, he came to photograph her house in the hills of Sherman Oaks.

The house was one of those late 1950s modernist gems. All open beams and crisp angles, with Danish Modern furniture and art pieces by Russa Graeme, the artist who was my wife’s mother.

My wife, whose name is Judy Graeme, used to have hazy recall of Shulman’s visit. They moved out of the house when she was 17, and the only evidence in her family was a stack of black and white, 4 by 6 photographer proofs.

Then a few years ago, a friend who’s an architect called with a surprise. Two images from that 1959 photo shoot were included in Shulman’s new book, "Modernism Rediscovered."

Labeled the Graeme Residence, they showed Judy’s childhood home frozen in time. Her living room, decorated with sculpture that we have now in our house.

Her parents’ bedroom. And her play yard, designed by Emmet Wemple, the landscape architect who went on to help design the Getty’s grounds.

This was the house where Judy had her first kiss at the front door after a concert at the Troubadour. The place her father lived, before passing away at age 47. She wanted to see more and worked up the courage to call Shulman at his home and studio on Woodrow Wilson Drive, high in Laurel Canyon.

Already in his 90s, Shulman was gracious. He remembered the shoot and invited her over to see everything.

They sat together as she pored over a file full of Julius Shulman images from her early life.

Her mother outside on the patio. Five year old Judy, playing in a sandbox with the little boy from next door.

My favorite shows my wife in her old bedroom, sitting on a chair reading, while her cat Burma dozes on the bed. The louver windows are open to the LA breeze and all of her dolls are lined up just so.

The scene was probably stage managed by Shulman, but for us it’s a priceless glimpse backward. A time capsule, perfectly lit and framed.

When she went back to Shulman’s studio to pick up 8 by 10 prints, he had a surprise. Don Hensman, the last surviving architect from the firm that designed the house, was there. He too remembered the Graeme Residence on Inwood Drive.

Judy keeps her Shulman photographs on a shelf in an inconspicuous black portfolio.
Friends ask why she doesn’t hang them on the wall. Our house has more than enough gallery space, already filled with photographs.

She explains that the Shulmans aren’t for hanging. She doesn't need to see them every day, to have her past staring at her.

Sometimes, she says, it's just enough to know it’s there when we want to visit.

For KCRW, this has been Kevin Roderick with LA Observed.