Born in 1914 in Illinois to Esther Julian and her then-husband Harry Husted, Paul Hull Julian was a background painter, designer, and infrequent director for cel animation productions. Over the course of my research into his life and work, I have found myself drawn again and again to the physical sites of his existence. I have no tangible access to these spaces, and so my research happens through the barrier of the screen: I look at images, I visit via street view, I try to imagine the angles and textures, how it might feel to walk over the thresholds. Spatial engagement feels appropriate: the structures of buildings and homes, both interior and exterior, came to feature heavily in Julian’s design work for animation.
This architectural focus, however, was not necessarily due to personal preference. Backgrounds produced for traditional cel animation occupy a niche in the sphere of painted imagery, usually ending up somewhere closer to theatrical backdrops than to fine art landscapes: in their most basic sense, they are created in order to serve a practical, external purpose; they are a singular aspect of a whole scene. The architectural structures Julian depicts, and the works of animation background artists as a collective, are in almost all instances, designed to be visually abandoned. There might be furniture, or a lamp left on, or even a small painting on one of the walls, but no people live there, despite these traces of life.
A (presumably small) selection of Julian’s more traditionally ‘fine art’ paintings, completed away from and alongside his working life in animation, are possible to view online, almost exclusively as auction listings. His earliest available works display a degree of impressionist-inclined watercolour regionalism, a style no doubt influenced by the teaching he received at the Chouinard Art Institute, many of the faculty of which – including Julian’s tutor, Millard Sheets – belonged to the influential California Water Colour Society (CWCS), known today as the National Watercolour Society.
Sailboats on rough seas, date unknown.
Ranch-house in landscape, date unknown.
Moored sailboats, 1936.