Capri Theater, San Diego
Julius Shulman
Capri Theater, San Diego (1954)
Gift of Craig Krull
Julius Shulman’s (b. 1910, Brooklyn, NY – d. 2009, Los Angeles, CA) iconic photographs have become some of the most widely known and published images of the midcentury architecture of Los Angeles and Southern California. Soon after moving to Los Angeles in 1936, the architect Richard Neutra hired Shulman to photograph his Kun Residence, launching Shulman’s career. Shulman would go on to document many of Neutra’s other buildings as well as the work of architects Frank Lloyd Wright, Pierre Koenig, Charles Eames, and Raphael Soriano among many others. Capri Theater, San Diego (1954) depicts a movie theater in San Diego that was extensively remodeled in 1954 in a modernist design whose lobby became an improvised art exhibition space. Like many of the buildings Shulman photographed, the Capri Theater depicted here no longer exists, having been demolished in 2003. Capri Theater, San Diego marks the first work by Shulman to enter Langson IMCA’s collection, an important expansion of our photography holdings that reflects the history of midcentury modernism in California.
Year acquired: 2022