John Gutmann: Beyond the Document, which recently appeared at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, features more than ninety black-and-white photographs, many of which had been published in European picture magazines. Gutmann's photographs are also on exhibitions in Barcelona, Spain, at LaFundacio Caixa de Pensions.
Working as a photojournalist in America in the 1930s, John Gutmann had two advantages. As a European, he viewed American life and culture through the eyes of an outsider. And as an artist, he was able to create images that were influenced by the major artistic ideas of early twentieth century Europe. Both of these factors merged and influenced his way of seeing. Although he worked as a photographer in America from 1933 on and had solo exhibitions at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco in 1938, 1941, and 1947, Gutmann's photographs were virtually forgotten until the 1970s. Since his exhibition in 1974 at New York's Light Gallery, however, Gutmann has exhibited widely and his photographs are now in the collections of major museums in both the United States and Europe.
Gutmann was born in Breslau, Germany - now Poland -into a financially comfortable Jewish family and was exposed to the arts at an early age. He had a special affinity for the visual arts and entered the State Academy for Art and Crafts in Breslau, where he became a master pupil of Otto Muller, the famous Expressionist painter who had moved from Berlin to Breslau. In addition, he studied philosophy and the history of art and was graduated with a B.A. in 1927.
Because of the stimulating environment and cosmopolitan atmosphere in Berlin, Gutmann decided to move there to attend graduate school. By 1928 he had earned an M.A. degree in art from the State Institute for Higher Education there and then for the next two years continued postgraduate studies at the University of Berlin and the State Academy of Arts. During these years his works were exhibited on several occasions and he was quickly establishing a reputation as a painter. But as the oppressive power of Nazism increased, Gutmann's work was excluded from public exhibition; in 1932 he lost his teaching position in Berlin. He could see the handwriting on the wall and decided to emigrate.
At first, he decided to move Spain, but upon the advice of a friend selected San Francisco instead, although he realized it would be impossible to earn a living there as an artist because of the Depression. He was advised to learn photography, so he could at least support himself. He bought a Rolleiflex and with the aid of the manual taught himself the bare essentials. Gutmann then went to the PresseFoto agency and convinced them that he was a professional photographer and obtained a contract - his first photographs were of Berlin. In November 1932, Gutmann was aboard a Norwegian freighter bound for San Francisco, where he arrived on New Year's Day, 1933.
He discovered that San Francisco, although charming and the most European of American cities, was a dramatic contrast to the excitement of life in Berlin. Nevertheless, as a European correspondent for PresseFoto and with some savings that he managed to bring with him from Germany, Gutmann was able to support himself for the next several years working as a photojournalist. As an artist and an alien, he was able to photograph this strange, new land with a fresh vision, but admittedly, was "not interested in making
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