John H. Gutmann

Place: Breslau

Born: 1905

Death: 1998

Biography:

John Gutmann was a German-born American photographer and painter. He was born in Breslau, German Empire (now Poland) in 1905 to an upper-middle-class Jewish family. He earned a degree in art from Staatliche Akademie für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe Breslau and moved to Berlin in 1927, earning a post-graduate degree at Preussisches Schukollegium for Hohere Erziehung. In 1933, he emigrated to the United States, arriving in San Francisco. Gutmann reinvented himself as a photographer before he left Germany, purchasing a Rolleiflex and signing a photojournalism contract with Presse-Photo. He is known for his painting and photography, and his work is in the American realism movement. He died in San Francisco, United States in 1998.