ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE: May 1949
Staff Photographer Julius Shulman's copy
John Entenza [Editor]
John Entenza [Editor]: ARTS AND ARCHITECTURE. Los Angeles: John D. Entenza, Volume 66, number 5, May 1949. Slim folio. Stapled printed wrappers. 62 pp. Illustrated text and articles. Cover by Eames Office employee and Graphic Design whiz Charles Kratka. Staff photographer Julius Shulman’s mailing label to rear panel with cancelled postage stamp. Wrappers lightly rubbed and worn and nearly separating, with the negative spacing of the masthead inked in (see scan): a very good copy with an exceptional provenance.
9.75 x 12.75 vintage magazine with 62 pages of editorial content and advertisements from leading purveyors of West Coast mid-century modernism, circa 1949. This copy belonged to Staff photographer and subscriber Julius Shulman with his address label to rear panel. In terms of decor, there is none of that Chippendale jive here-- every residential interior is decked out in full midcentury glory.
Contents:
- CASE STUDY HOUSE No. 8 Designed by Charles Eames
- The Modern Institute of Art by Kenneth Ross
- From Mountainheads to Mole Hills-A Review by Victor Gruen, Architect
- Study for Spokane, Washington, by the University of Idaho Royal McClure, Acting Professor
- House in a Museum Garden by Marcel Breuer, Architect. In 1948, the Museum of Modern Art initiated a series of model post-war houses by well-known architects exhibited in the museum's garden. Marcel Breuer's house was the inaugural design and was open to the public between April 14 and October 30, 1949. The rectangular volume of the house was clad in vertical cypress boards and topped by a butterfly roof. The children's and guest bedroom, along with a playroom and attached play yard, were located at one end of the house. The living-dining room and garage could be found at the other end. The master bedroom was located above the garage in the space created by the upward incline of the butterfly roof and was accessible by interior and exterior staircases. Outdoor spaces like the patio and play yard were defined by low, stone walls. Breuer furnished the interior with modern furniture, including numerous pieces of his own design. The interior color scheme was based on the colors and textures of natural stone and wood with blue accent walls. Large crowds visited the house and expressed enthusiasm for the house and its contents, though some critics disliked the separation of children's and parents' spaces. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. purchased the house after the exhibition and moved it to the family estate in Pocantico Hills. Breuer built numerous other versions of the house for clients inspired by their visit to the museum garden. [The Marcel Breuer Archives, Syracuse University]
- House by Mario Corbett, Architect; Albert Lanier, Collaborator
- The AIA honor Award house by Fred Langhorst, Architect
- The Prudential building by Wurdeman and Becket, Architects
- Murals for a Chicago restaurant by Richard Koppe. Educator, painter, and sculptor Richard Koppe [United States, 1916-1973] moved to Chicago in 1937, and studied at the New Bauhaus and the School of Design. He became an instructor at the Institute, which merged with the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1946 and remained an Associate Professor and headed the Department of Visual Design until 1963. He then became a professor of Art at the University of Illinois in 1963. Architect Robert E. Lederer transformed the basement of Chicago’s Sherman House hotel into The Well of the Sea restaurant in 1948. Richard Koppe, an instructor at the Insitute of Design was assigned by Lederer to design the murals and mobiles for the restaurant. Koppe used fluorescent paint for the five murals that were then illuminated with invisible black lights for a “dramatic and mysterious effectacross the dim recesses of the interior.” Koppe also designed organic aquatic forms cut out of the walls and backlit with colored lights.Koppe aquatic abstractions were wildly popular in the 1950s: Shenango China released a full product line based on Koppe’s Dinnerware in 1953, and the popular Libbey Glass Mediterranean pattern was also attributed to Koppe.
- full-page advertisement for Herman Miller; and more.
Editorial Associates for Arts and Architecture included Herbert Matter and Charles Eames. Julius Shulman was the staff photographer. The Editorial Advisory Board included William Wilson Wurster,Richard neutra, Isamu Noguchi, eero Saarinen, Gardner Dailey, Sumner Spaulding, Mario Corbett, Esther McCoy, John Funk, Gregory Ain, George Nelson, Gyorgy Kepes, marcel Breuer, Raphael Soriano, Ray Eames, Garret Eckbo, Edgar Kaufman, Jr. and others luminaries of the mid-century modern movement.
American photographer Julius Shulman's (1910 – 2009) images of Californian architecture have burned themselves into the retina of the 20th century. A book on modern architecture without Shulman is inconceivable. Some of his architectural photographs, like the iconic shots of Frank Lloyd Wright's or Pierre Koenig's remarkable structures, have been published countless times. The brilliance of buildings like those by Charles Eames, as well as those of his close friend, Richard Neutra, was first brought to light by Shulman's photography.
The clarity of his work demanded that architectural photography had to be considered as an independent art form. Each Shulman image unites perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building's surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs.
Today, a great many of the buildings documented by Shulman have disappeared or been crudely converted, but the thirst for his pioneering images is stronger than ever before. This is a vivid journey across six decades of great architecture and classic photography through the famously incomparable eyes of Julius Shulman.
“Some of his architectural photographs, like the iconic shots of Frank Lloyd Wright's or Pierre Koenig's remarkable structures, have been published countless times. The brilliance of buildings like those by Charles Eames, as well as those of his close friends, Richard Neutra and Raphael Soriano, was first brought to light by Shulman's photography. The clarity of his work demanded that architectural photography had to be considered as an independent art form. Each Shulman image unites perception and understanding for the buildings and their place in the landscape. The precise compositions reveal not just the architectural ideas behind a building's surface, but also the visions and hopes of an entire age. A sense of humanity is always present in his work, even when the human figure is absent from the actual photographs.” [Wikipedia]
In 1938, John Entenza joined California Arts and Architecture magazine as editor. By 1943, Entenza and his art director Alvin Lustig had completely overhauled the magazine and renamed it Arts and Architecture. Arts and Architecture championed all that was new in the arts, with special emphasis on emerging modernist architecture in Southern California.
One of the pivotal figures in the growth of modernism in California, Entenza's most lasting contribution was his sponsorship of the Case Study Houses project, which featured the works of architects Thornton Abell, Conrad Buff, Calvin Straub, Donald Hensman, Charles Eames, Eero Saarinen, J. R. Davidson, A. Quincy Jones, Frederick Emmons, Don Knorr, Edward Killinsworth, Jules Brady, Waugh Smith, Pierre Koenig, Kemper Nomland, Kemper Nomland Jr., Richard Neutra, Ralph Rapson, Raphael Soriano, Whitney Smith, Sumner Spaulding, John Rex, Rodney Walker, William Wilson Wurster, Theodore Bernardi and Craig Ellwood. Arts and Architecture also ran articles and interviews on artists and designers such as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, George Nakashima, George Nelson and many other groundbreakers.