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 Philip Johnson Collection of Franz Schulze

Donated April 10 and December 14, 2007

Professor of Art Emeritus Franz Schulze, following publication in 1985 of his biography of Mies van der Rohe, researched, wrote and published in 1994 a biography of architect, museum curator, and critic Philip Johnson: Philip Johnson: Life and Work (Knopf, 1994, 379 pp., 125 half-tone illus.; U. Chicago pbk. 1996). 

In the process of that research and writing Schulze accumulated (1) correspondence (either direct to him from people who knew Johnson and Johnson himself and also copies of correspondence in major archives), (2) oral history tapes and transcriptions (the transcriptions and some of the tapes were from interviews with Johnson and associates by others, with most tapes by Schulze of Johnson), (3) published accounts of Johnson and his work and writings by Johnson, (4) photographs of the man, usually with his circle, and of his architectural work, and (5) reviews and correspondence with Schulze himself following the book’s publication in 1994.  This material adds up to approximately seven linear feet, in boxes and binders, and ten books.

Philip Johnson (1906-2005) was a major figure in promoting new architecture in mid-20th C. America, modernism from the 1930s to the 1950s and then by the 1960s and 1970s postmodernism.  His 1949 Glass House and estate in New Canaan, CT recently opened to the public, now is the property of the National Trust.  Well-publicized houses that he built in New Canaan and elsewhere were trendsetters for architects working in Lake Forest and in the Chicago suburban region, notably John Black Lee, I.W. Colburn, and the firm of Frazier Raftery Orr & Fairbank.  Schulze’s biography was the first such comprehensive treatment of Johnson’s life and high-profile career.  While Johnson supported Schulze’s work by providing access, this was not a commissioned or official biography, and the book was the result of Schulze’s independent research.

There is no comparable depository of reference work on his life and on aspects of his work, and no other significant collection of research materials on Johnson and his work between the two coasts. The Getty Institute, Los Angeles, houses the major body (38 lin. ft.) of Johnson’s own papers, photographs (personal and work), publications, and electronically recorded files and lectures, etc.  On the east coast, in New York, Johnson’s papers at the Museum of Modern Art, 1931-78, reflect his career-long association with, indeed identification with, that institution: 4.8 lin. ft. of records in the MOMA archives.  Also in New York Johnson’s architectural drawings, 5100 sheets, are available at the Avery Architectural Library, Columbia.  Oral histories, some copied here, are housed at Columbia, as well.   And there are other small groups of letters and photos in other collections, such as 1930s correspondence by Johnson with Shelter magazine, now at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.  Many of Johnson’s cassette tapes recorded with Schulze for this biography project, now fifteen to twenty years old, represent unique records of his own words on his life and career. 

Schulze’s scholarly stature, after publication of his ground-breaking biography of Mies van der Rohe for the University of Chicago Press in 1985, not only led to his being able to undertake his book on Johnson, but helped him correspond with and interview Johnson and his colleagues, associates, family, etc.  

Schulze’s research went beyond material made available by Johnson, to sources not previously investigated on the future architect’s 1930s conservative politics and also on his personal life.  The results of all this research, published in the 1994 biography while Johnson still was living, resulted in a brisk body of response from reviewers and others, including from those who expressed displeasure that Johnson’s personal life and history were discussed during his lifetime in such detail.  Johnson himself, a consummate promoter of his reputation in the media, after publication professed to Schulze that he was displeased with the result, and supporters joined him in this view.

Others of course admired Schulze’s accomplishment.  University of Illinois at Chicago architectural historian Robert Bruegmann, for example, writing in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians for June 1996, sees the Johnson biography as part of a larger history, along with the author’s 1985 Mies volume. Together the two careers spanned most of the 20th C.  In his two studies, according to Bruegmann, Schulze moves from certainties at the outset of the 20th C., with the young Mies, and then on to some of the complexities of Johnson’s career and to “our own world of moral doubts and contingent realities” (190-91).  The two men, their works, and their careers parallel the broader history of the century.

The Schulze book’s reviews for various levels of audience, including national and more local coverage, here are organized chronologically.

One apparent effect of the Schulze book’s publication was to renew a broad public interest in the (at  that time) late octogenarian and his work, and it can be seen as giving a boost to Johnson’s visibility, which continued through the last decade of his life, until his death at ninety-eight in 2005.  The stimulation of new interest in Johnson by Schulze’s book and the “conversation” it aroused may have contributed to both the increase in books on Johnson’s work (such as The Houses of Philip Johnson by Stover Jenkins and David Mohney, Abbeville, 2001, and some--with Johnson listed as a co-author—on his work, in Texas, etc.).  Indeed, it may have contributed to the recently manifested renewed appreciation generally of the best modernist architecture and a return to International Style interiors especially and also new and addition projects (such as Lake Forest College’s 2006-completed Mohr Student Center, by Wright Associates, Lake Forest, on Middle Campus adjacent to the library). A notable example of this revivalist trend even for additions is found in the July 2010 Architectural Digest article, "Design Dialogue...," (pp. 63-[69]) on an architect Allan Greenberg designed Miesian style addition to a classic revival Greenwich, CT house. 

The photograph collection gathered in preparation for the book and later, is not large (one-hundred and fifty-three images, plus fifteen photocopies), but it is broadly representative of Johnson’s life and work.  The quality of photography which his work attracted was outstanding, and excellent examples are represented here.  The personal photographs, some nearly a century old though most are later and of his career, apparently are not all duplicated in the Getty Institute collection, according to that repository’s web-based finding aid, and are essential for future publications.  Notable is the photography of Johnson’s design projects, for which most of some twenty photographers are identified from the 1910s to the 1990s. More than twenty-five 8 x 10 b & w prints each are by prominent architectural photographers Ezra Stoller (1915-2004) and Richard Payne.  Stoller’s work represents the most significant group here, he being recognized for contributing to recognition of modern architecture and the first to be honored with the AIA Gold Medal for Photography in 1961 (Schulze worked directly with Stoller’s and Payne’s offices). Richard Payne was engaged by Johnson to provide photography for the 1994 project.  

At the same time a box of correspondence, notes, and memoranda written or typed by Schulze has been placed on deposit with the rest of the collection, for future donation.

In addition to the Getty Institute web finding aid with its extensive listing of Johnson projects and of publications by and about Johnson, the Wikipedia web article on Philip Johnson offers a good overview and list of major Johnson design projects with some thumbnail images, along with further references. 

 

 

What follows is an outline of Franz Schulze’s collection on Philip Johnson, the man and his career:

Series I. Biography (2.5 linear feet in two boxes, one for oral history tapes)

 

Series II. Career, Chronological File, 1930s to 2000s (1.5 linear ft. in one box)

        1930s 

        1930s: Politics   

        1940s

Series III. Topics  (1.5 linear ft. in one box)

 

Series IV. Photographs, etc. (one drawing) (.75 linear ft., in one Hollinger box, plus three folio binders)

 

Series V. Response to 1994 Schulze biography of Johnson (.5 lin. Ft. in one

              Hollinger box, plus one file shelved in Series/Box I. 

  • Reviews (see accompanying spreadsheet listing)
  • Reviews of German edition, 1996.
  • Correspondence: letters, etc. to Schulze (shelved after I.D. in Box I).

 

VI. Franz Schulze papers relating to his 1994 Johnson biography

              (on deposit; 1.5 lin. Ft.).  Letters of inquiry and follow-up, permissions,

              etc. by Schulze)

Also, ten books relating to Johnson (5 hardbound, 5 pbk.)

 

Arthur H. Miller

Archivist and Librarian

Donnelley and Lee Library

Lake Forest College

amiller@lakeforest.edu; 847-735-5064

Revised February 26, 2008; June 24, 2010.