John Gutmann
21 Oct 2011 - 08 Jan 2012
JOHN GUTMANN
Curator: Carlos Gollonet
21 October, 2011 - 8 January, 2012
Sala Rekalde is pleased to host the exhibition of the photographer John Gutmann.
This exhibition is the first retrospective view to be organised around the important work of the photographer, by the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona and Fundación MAPFRE.
More than a hundred photographs at Sala Rekalde in Bilbao show the work of John Gutmann (1905-1998), one of the great 20th century masters of American photography.
John Gutmann unquestionably represents the image of the modern artist and, thanks to his particular powers of perception, he has contributed a unique avant-garde take on the history of contemporary photography.
The show revolves around a series of fundamental themes that encapsulate Gutmann’s interest in the American lifestyle and the search for the most expressive moment and the least likely angle. That is where the originality of his work lies.
In Unrooted Vision, Gutmann arrives in the United States and hits the street camera in hand to capture the reality that so enthuses him; in The Encounter with a New Metropolis he records his fascination for the cities of the USA and in Automobilia he displays his study on the automobile culture that, for him, was a sign of the individualist American spirit.
Gutmann was always attracted by the fringes of society and in American Figures he portrays the different cultures that met up in the city or within the rural environment, paying notable attention to marginal characters. The artist pays tribute to the lonely, the misfits, undeterred fighters and survivors as models of liberty.
In American Landscapes he registers regional differences between different territories and their local architectures; the strength of industrial structures designed for practical purposes contrasts with the characteristic advertising publicity that defines the topography of North America.
John Gutmann also feels a natural affinity with all who take risks to reach the peak of their abilities and their personal expression. So, in Carnival Spirit he immortalises with his camera young athletes, artists or circus characters in the exact moment when they defy gravity, physically and socially.
Finally, Signals of War brings together pictures that he took –as a photographer and cameraman in the Asian Theater for the Office of War Information-, after enlisting in 1942 in the United States Armed Forces. They are landscapes, architectures and towns in China, Burma and India, irrigation and cultivation methods in rural zones next to the visible consequences of military conflict on soldiers and the local population, an aspect that he continually depicts throughout the whole war.
JOHN GUTMANN (1905-1998) was born in Breslau (now Wroclaw, in Poland) and studied art in Breslau and Berlin, having been an advanced disciple of expressionist painter Otto Mueller. Like many other Jewish-German artists and professionals, Gutmann had to emigrate to the United States in the face of the rise of Nazism in 1933. That geographical change also brought the beginning of a new activity focussed on photography and, thanks to a contract with the Berlin agency Presse-Photo –to distribute in Europe the photographs he created in his new destination-, he managed to survive the difficult years of the Great Depression.
Now settled in San Francisco, he was soon seduced by the modernity and cosmopolitanism of North American society. Trained in the modern movements of Berlin expressionism he succeeded in translating his painter’s sensibility into photography and captured snapshots of reality in its constant flux. John Gutmann’s gaze is that of a European who, like other Jewish-German émigrés, among them Robert Frank, connected with the vitality of the US scene.
His images transcend documentary reportage and become expressions of the most surprising and original facets of daily life. Everything Gutmann came across was extraordinary to him, as his camera captured automobiles, huge advertising hoardings, graffiti, characters out on the edge, social chaos, ethnic diversity or the landscapes he encountered on his bus journeys throughout deep America. Gutmann wished to reflect a chronicle of a society in a permanent state of change and his photographs steer clear of preciosity and artifice. He is an artist committed to modern art and, as such, he is drawn to record movement, to seek the most expressive moment and the least likely angle. That is where the originality of his photographic work lies.
On his death in San Francisco in 1998 he was already a recognised photographer. He had at first taken up photography in order to support himself economically, and always fundamentally considered himself as a painter, never ceasing to practice and exhibit in that field. From the 1940s onwards his photographs started to appear in important North American journals including U.S Camera, Look, Life, and Saturday Evening Post. His activity had been intense and, when he retired from his teaching job at San Francisco State College in 1973, Gutmann systematically began to collect and classify the negatives from his entire photographic production and, at the end of his life, was able to see the publication of various monographs of his work. The posthumous transfer of Gutmann’s photographic and documentary archive to the Centre for Creative Photography, University of Arizona made it possible for his complete career to be studied in depth.
Curator: Carlos Gollonet
21 October, 2011 - 8 January, 2012
Sala Rekalde is pleased to host the exhibition of the photographer John Gutmann.
This exhibition is the first retrospective view to be organised around the important work of the photographer, by the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona and Fundación MAPFRE.
More than a hundred photographs at Sala Rekalde in Bilbao show the work of John Gutmann (1905-1998), one of the great 20th century masters of American photography.
John Gutmann unquestionably represents the image of the modern artist and, thanks to his particular powers of perception, he has contributed a unique avant-garde take on the history of contemporary photography.
The show revolves around a series of fundamental themes that encapsulate Gutmann’s interest in the American lifestyle and the search for the most expressive moment and the least likely angle. That is where the originality of his work lies.
In Unrooted Vision, Gutmann arrives in the United States and hits the street camera in hand to capture the reality that so enthuses him; in The Encounter with a New Metropolis he records his fascination for the cities of the USA and in Automobilia he displays his study on the automobile culture that, for him, was a sign of the individualist American spirit.
Gutmann was always attracted by the fringes of society and in American Figures he portrays the different cultures that met up in the city or within the rural environment, paying notable attention to marginal characters. The artist pays tribute to the lonely, the misfits, undeterred fighters and survivors as models of liberty.
In American Landscapes he registers regional differences between different territories and their local architectures; the strength of industrial structures designed for practical purposes contrasts with the characteristic advertising publicity that defines the topography of North America.
John Gutmann also feels a natural affinity with all who take risks to reach the peak of their abilities and their personal expression. So, in Carnival Spirit he immortalises with his camera young athletes, artists or circus characters in the exact moment when they defy gravity, physically and socially.
Finally, Signals of War brings together pictures that he took –as a photographer and cameraman in the Asian Theater for the Office of War Information-, after enlisting in 1942 in the United States Armed Forces. They are landscapes, architectures and towns in China, Burma and India, irrigation and cultivation methods in rural zones next to the visible consequences of military conflict on soldiers and the local population, an aspect that he continually depicts throughout the whole war.
JOHN GUTMANN (1905-1998) was born in Breslau (now Wroclaw, in Poland) and studied art in Breslau and Berlin, having been an advanced disciple of expressionist painter Otto Mueller. Like many other Jewish-German artists and professionals, Gutmann had to emigrate to the United States in the face of the rise of Nazism in 1933. That geographical change also brought the beginning of a new activity focussed on photography and, thanks to a contract with the Berlin agency Presse-Photo –to distribute in Europe the photographs he created in his new destination-, he managed to survive the difficult years of the Great Depression.
Now settled in San Francisco, he was soon seduced by the modernity and cosmopolitanism of North American society. Trained in the modern movements of Berlin expressionism he succeeded in translating his painter’s sensibility into photography and captured snapshots of reality in its constant flux. John Gutmann’s gaze is that of a European who, like other Jewish-German émigrés, among them Robert Frank, connected with the vitality of the US scene.
His images transcend documentary reportage and become expressions of the most surprising and original facets of daily life. Everything Gutmann came across was extraordinary to him, as his camera captured automobiles, huge advertising hoardings, graffiti, characters out on the edge, social chaos, ethnic diversity or the landscapes he encountered on his bus journeys throughout deep America. Gutmann wished to reflect a chronicle of a society in a permanent state of change and his photographs steer clear of preciosity and artifice. He is an artist committed to modern art and, as such, he is drawn to record movement, to seek the most expressive moment and the least likely angle. That is where the originality of his photographic work lies.
On his death in San Francisco in 1998 he was already a recognised photographer. He had at first taken up photography in order to support himself economically, and always fundamentally considered himself as a painter, never ceasing to practice and exhibit in that field. From the 1940s onwards his photographs started to appear in important North American journals including U.S Camera, Look, Life, and Saturday Evening Post. His activity had been intense and, when he retired from his teaching job at San Francisco State College in 1973, Gutmann systematically began to collect and classify the negatives from his entire photographic production and, at the end of his life, was able to see the publication of various monographs of his work. The posthumous transfer of Gutmann’s photographic and documentary archive to the Centre for Creative Photography, University of Arizona made it possible for his complete career to be studied in depth.