Collection: Julian Wasser

The New York Times described him as the “photographer laureate” of Los Angeles but Julian Wasser was so much more than a photographer. The Time/Life staffer chronicled the people and events that shaped
the cultural history of the California landscape. He captured the combustible brew of social, political and celebrity headliners that told stories both light and dark.

Unforgettable and collectible, his work has rarely been exhibited and yet resides in the world’s pre-eminent museum collections; Wasser even upto his death at 89 was happier with camera in hand than fronting gallery shows of the work his discerning eye for the extraordinary, revealed. Be it an atmospheric, ethereal portrait of JFK, or his brother Robert Kennedy heading for the White House moments before his tragic murder, or a simple but potent portrait of Joan Didion or

Steve McQueen, Wasser was a polymathic photographer who mastered his craft from action to portraiture and made it art.

As The LA Times recorded on his passing, “Wasser was a legend who left a legacy of historically important images obtained through a combination of timing, savvy and personal charisma.”

Wasser left behind few signed prints in the family collection but these together with posthumous prints, in digitally signed limited editions authenticated by his daughter, the actor-director Alexi Wasser who curates his archive, are being made available for the first time.