Pictures from Home

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Photographer Larry Sultan, who broke out in 1977 with the book Evidence – a collaboration with Mike Mandel collecting odd photographs from government and corporate archives – died of cancer last weekend at the age of 63.

Larry Sultan Mom Posing for me and Dad watching TV, 1984

In later years Sultan published Pictures from Home – a book of photos of his parents – and The Valley, a series depicting homes in Southern California which had been rented for use as XXX film sets.

Larry Sultan Boxers, Mission Hills, 2000,
from the series The Valley

A few years ago, Sultan shot a campaign for Bottega Veneta with art direction influenced (I would guess) by The Valley and Pictures from Home, somewhat steered toward the clean angularity of Julius Shulman.

Quite a career, that guy – read Randy Kennedy's obituary in yesterday's New York Times. View images from and order the books Evidence and The Valley here and here. Pictures from Home requires a search and some spare change – I recommend checking abebooks.com.

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Update: This week Fresh Air re-played an interview with Sultan from 1989, when he was working on Pictures from Home – click here to listen.