Title supplied by cataloger.; 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. The Ambassador Hotel, designed by renowned architect Myron Hunt, opened in 1921 on the site of a former dairy farm. The Schine family owned the Ambassador for about 50 years, until its doors closed on January 3, 1989. The landmark hotel was eventually demolished between late 2005 and early 2006. An unknown sculptor created the bronze statue in the fountain, which might have been originally named "Gloria." This statue was lost and artist Bobbie Carlyle recreated a replacement version for LAUSD (now titled "Seaswept"), lightly clothed as a concession to the new use by the school district. A pylon tower, which includes a fountain, nude bronze sculpture, and a bas-relief, in front of the Ambassador Hotel; it identifies the vehicle entrance to the hotel.
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;15 x 11 cm. Photographic prints
Ambassador Hotel Female nude in art--Statues--California--Los Angeles Statues--California--Los Angeles Fountains--California--Los Angeles Bronze sculpture--California--Los Angeles Bas-relief--California--Los Angeles Automobiles--California--Los Angeles Streets--California--Los Angeles Art deco (Architecture)--California--Los Angeles Lost works of art--California--Los Angeles Wilshire Boulevard (Los Angeles, Calif.) Schultheis Collection photographs
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