Herman J. Schultheis was born in Aachen, Germany in 1900, and immigrated to the United States in the mid-1920s after obtaining a Ph.D. in mechanical and electrical engineering. He married Ethel Wisloh in 1936, and the pair moved to Los Angeles the following year. He worked in the film industry from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, most notably on the animated features Fantasia and Pinocchio. His detailed notebook, documenting the special effects for Fantasia, is the subject of a 14-minute short-subject included on the film's DVD. In 1949, he started employment with Librascope as a patent engineer. Schultheis was an avid amateur photographer who traveled the world with his cameras. It was on one of these photographic exhibitions in 1955 that he disappeared in the jungles of Guatemala. His remains were discovered 18 months later. The digitized portion of this collection represents the images Schultheis took of Los Angeles and its surrounding communities after he relocated to the area in 1937. Built in 1931, the fountain includes water-jets and multi-hued lights, which allow for 60 different combined effects every 8 minutes at night. Atop the fountain is a figure of a Native American male, modeled after Gradin Newsom, kneeling in prayer. Ralph Carlin Flewelling designed the fountain and Robert Merrell Gage designed the sculpture. The "Electric Fountain" installed near the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards in Beverly Gardens Park in Beverly Hills.
Fountains--California--Beverly Hills Parks--California--Beverly Hills Beverly Gardens Park (Beverly Hills, Calif.) Beverly Hills (Calif.) Night photographs Schultheis Collection photographs Flewelling, Ralph C Gage, Merrell,1892-1981
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