John Gutmann . . . . . My Eyes Were Fresh
Forced to leave Germany in 1933, Gutmann served as an important link between early twentieth century European modernism
and the evolving artistic culture of San Francisco. From 1938 until 1973 he taught modern art and art history at
San Francisco State University and was an influential force in the lives of generations of American artists.
Berlin in the 1920’s was full of bright lights, art galleries, cinemas, theatres and cabarets. This cosmopolitan city, filled with excitement and creativity, influenced John Gutmann’s early career. His training there under Expressionist painter Otto Müller, an original member of Die Brücke, profoundly impacted his later work.
“Gutmann’s art is essentially that of a European, fascinated by the culture he found in the New World…Trained as a painter, accredited as a teacher by an important German artist… he was predisposed to admire by temperament and aesthetic training.” Sandra S. Phillips, Curator of Photography, Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
For him, photography, like painting, was “another way to see the world”. He had a singular gift for creating powerful and iconic images.
Said Guttman, “I want my pictures to be read and explored. I am usually pleased when the viewer finds interpretations that I had not been aware of. In this sense I am not interested in trying desperately to make Art but I am interested in relating to the marvelous extravagance of Life”.
John Gutmann was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1977. His work has been widely exhibited. It is in over 40 major museum and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Guggenheim, The de Young Museum, LA County Museum of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
This exhibit is organized to reflect the diversity of Gutmann’s work. Through it all, he saw America with Fresh Eyes. He saw a certain optimism, while Farm Security Administration photographers recorded Depression era suffering. He saw humor in signage and graffiti. He was fascinated with America’s fascination with the automobile. Gutmann had a German refugee’s reservation about troops in the streets and the irony of the Nazi emblem flying in San Francisco City Hall. While much of his work was created in California, he photographed in Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana, as well as New York, recording the diversity of his new country.
Featured in this exhibition is the work of John Gutmann.
Select this link to view his complete artist page.
John Gutmann (1905-1998)
Born in Breslau, Germany, Gutmann studied to be a painter under Otto Mueller before turning to photography shortly before he emigrated to the United States, where he became known for his vivid images of popular culture. Gutmann brought a foreigner’s view to the streets of California, where he saw with fresh eyes such astonishing (to him) phenomena as multiracial crowds, drive in movies and restaurants, drum majorettes, car parks and golf links, beauty contests, tattoo parlors, and movie marquees. He was fascinated by the status of the car as an American icon and photographed unusual license plates, decorated dashboards, decals, and hood ornaments. He also took a notable series of New York City in the 1940s. In Germany he worked as a photojournalist for Presse Photo before his arrival in the United States, when he worked as a photojournalist for Pix, Inc. (1936 1963). A professor at San Francisco State University from 1938 to 1973, Gutmann won a Guggenheim fellowship in 1978. His work has been published in major periodicals and is held by such collections as those of the Amon Carter in Fort Worth, San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Seagram Collection in New York.
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.
