AJC, A European Eye Trained On American Depression

Below is an excerpt of a review from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
To read the entire review please access the AJC web site.

DATE: April 6, 2008
PUBLICATION: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BYLINE: Lisa Kurzner
TITLE: A European Eye Trained On American Depression

EXHIBITION: John Gutmann: My Eyes Were Fresh

Bottom line: This photography show takes viewers through 1930s America through the eyes of an accomplished European modernist. Not to be missed. The John Gutmann show at Lumiere gallery lets viewers tour city life of 1930s America through European eyes, bringing a modernist flair and incisive vision to a nation grappling with the Depression and readying for war. Gutmann, born in Germany and trained in Berlin in Expressionist Otto Mueller’s studio, left for San Francisco in 1933 as the Nazis came to power.

Though trained as a painter, Gutmann was photographing for picture agencies before his trans-Atlantic move. One of the few European images in the show, “October Berlin” (1933), of a girl and her reflection caught in a shop window, reveals the compositional assurance of photographers such as Andre Kertesz and Man Ray in Gutmann’s work. “Elevator Garage, Chicago” (1936) turns the vertical automobile garage into a column of Bauhaus might and sets it against one of the city’s fabled skyscrapers.

The exhibition of almost 80 silver prints ranges broadly from images of commercial signage and graffiti to a sequence on the American car photographed around the country. In between are arresting images from New Orleans’ Mardi Gras to New York’s Bowery and the down and out in Mobile.

Most fascinating are the images of military presence on U.S. shores, whether in parade formation or patrolling San Francisco streets during its 1934 general strike. Having only recently left Germany, Gutmann undoubtedly was sensitive to the notion of military control in society.

Stylistically, Gutmann, like the Surrealists and modern painters of the era, was interested in anonymous folk art culture, as seen in the sign images, layered from foreground to background with hand lettering.

“Ben’s Barbershop Window” (1946), a storefront display filled with haphazardly arranged signs, echoes Walker Evans’ “American Photographs” work of the 1930s and exemplifies Gutmann’s finely tuned pictorial sensibility. The play of light and shadow brings the signage to life, both the messages and writers behind them.

The prints were produced by Gutmann primarily in the 1980s, following his rediscovery as appreciation for photography expanded in museum culture. Although vintage work by Gutmann exists, it is rare, and this show presents collectors and enthusiasts with a significant body of work to learn about this accomplished photographer.

It’s a wonderful gem of a show.

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