Editor's note: Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center
for Visual Arts at Stanford University provided source material to Resource
Library Magazine for the following article or essay. If you have questions
or comments regarding the source material, please contact the Iris &
B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University directly
through either this phone number or web address:
The Photography of John
Gutmann: Culture Shock
Focusing on an outstanding
group of 100 photographs selected by the artist to exemplify more than a
half century of work, The Photography of John Gutmann: Culture Shock
examines the achievement of this unique and influential artist and considers
his career in its historic context. The exhibition surveys Gutmann's documentary
work in Asia, Europe, and the United States during the 1930s and '40s and
includes classic images such as Death Stalks the Fillmore (1934).
Gutmann's photographs illustrate his personal adaptation of surrealism.
He turned from recording the odd and the marvelous that presented itself
to his gaze and began to experiment with inventing and constructing images.
(left: John Gutmann, Jitterbug, New Orleans, 1937, Gelatin-silver
print, The Capital Group Companies, Inc.)
Born in Germany in 1905 and trained as a painter, Gutmann
took up photography in 1933 and supported himself as a photojournalist after
emigrating to the United States. A student of the German expressionist painter
Otto 
Mueller, Gutmann brought to the task of
documenting his new surroundings a sensibility nurtured in the avant-garde
circles of Berlin. He became fascinated by the popular culture of the United
States-"all this bad taste here which, of course, I learned to love"-which
he saw as evidence of "enormous vitality." "I was seeing
America with an outsider's eyes-the automobiles, the speed, the freedom,
the graffiti," he explained in a 1989 interview, and his powerful images,
which record "the almost bizarre, exotic qualities of the country,"
established his reputation. Having settled in San Francisco, he helped link
the West Coast to European modernism, inspiring later generations of photographers
through his unique capacity to disclose the ambiguities and oddities within
the commonplace. (right: John Gutmann, The Oracle, 1949, Gelatin-silver
print, The Capital Group Companies, Inc.)
The fully illustrated catalogue accompanying
the exhibition features an introduction by Sandra S. Phillips, Curator of
Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Phillips explores
two primary themes suggested by this unique selection of works from the
Capitol Group collection. She compares Gutmann's vision of American culture
and the work of other photojournalists in such popular magazines as Life
and Look. She also discusses Gutmann's artistic development, elucidating
continuities between his images of the '30s and '40s that document American
vernacular culture and his personal surrealism of the 1950s. (left:
John Gutmann, Mobile, Alabama, 1937, Gelatin-silver print, The Capital
Group Companies, Inc.)
All photographs are lent by The Capital Group Companies,
Inc. or The Capital Group Foundation. The Photography of John Gutmann:
Culture Shock is organized and circulated by the Iris & B. Gerald
Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University. The exhibition has
been made possible, in part, by generous support from The Capital Group
Companies, Inc. and The Capital Group Foundation.
Read more articles and essays concerning this institutional
source by visiting the sub-index page for the Cantor
Arts Center in Resource Library
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Copyright 1996-2001 Traditional Fine Art
Online, Inc. All rights reserved.
Focusing on an outstanding
group of 100 photographs selected by the artist to exemplify more than a
half century of work, The Photography of John Gutmann: Culture Shock
examines the achievement of this unique and influential artist and considers
his career in its historic context. The exhibition surveys Gutmann's documentary
work in Asia, Europe, and the United States during the 1930s and '40s and
includes classic images such as Death Stalks the Fillmore (1934).
Gutmann's photographs illustrate his personal adaptation of surrealism.
He turned from recording the odd and the marvelous that presented itself
to his gaze and began to experiment with inventing and constructing images.
(left: John Gutmann, Jitterbug, New Orleans, 1937, Gelatin-silver
print, The Capital Group Companies, Inc.)
