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REVIEW EXCERPTS

David Ebony

Associate Managing Editor and News Editor, Art in America

Thomas K. Seligman

Director, Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University

Elizabeth Cook-Romero

Writer, Pasatiempo, The New Mexican

Sandra S. Phillips

Senior Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Klaus Scheidsteger

Producer, Gesellschaft für audiovisuelle und akustische Communikation mbH

Maia-Mari Sutnik

Curator of Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario

John Weber

Curator of Education and Public Programs, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Lew Thomas

Photographer, Artist, Curator and Director

Gail Silva

Director, Film Arts Foundation

Mark Johnson

Assistant Professor and Gallery Director, San Francisco State University

Maia-Mari Sutnik

Curator of Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario

REVIEW EXCERPTS

Jane Levy Reed's recent film My Eyes Were Fresh: The Life and Photographs of John Gutmann is an indispensable resource on the life and work of a seminal figure in the evolution of 20th-century photography. It is an intimate portrait of the artist-photographer told by Gutmann himself in a series of filmed interviews and commentaries recorded in the years just prior to his death in 1998. Gutmann's own statements about key works in his long career help give these already iconic images an added depth and meaning. Among the bonus material on the DVD are two outstanding documentary films by Gutmann. Journey to Kunming, shot in China in 1944, is an astonishing look daily life in pre-Revolution China. Le Palais Idéal, is a colorful and evocative study of the fabulous architectural folly created by the French postman and self-taught architect-sculptor Ferdinand Cheval in the early years of the 20th century. Gutmann's evocative film was shot in 1957, before the word "outsider art" was in common use and before the place became a popular tourist destination.

David Ebony

Associate Managing Editor and News Editor, Art in America

John Gutmann was an extremely important and influential photographer. His work is included in major collections in the United States and in Europe. Jane Reed was able to obtain quite extraordinary interviews with John and others. The material she has put together in this film is extremely relevant and important to the history of photography, and to understanding the cultural and social history of the second half of the twentieth century as seen and documented through Gutmann's eyes.

Thomas K. Seligman

Director, Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University

In 1934, John Gutmann (1905—1998), a young, German Jewish artist fleeing Nazism, saw San Francisco through the eyes of a newcomer looking for clues about life in his new land. My Eyes Were Fresh runs just under 30 minutes. Gutmann's is the only voice. Soft-spoken and gentle, he explains how an artist sees, reminiscing about the San Francisco General Strike of 1934. He also reveals how shocking it was for a refugee from fascism to see tanks and troops on the streets of an American city.

Reed met Gutmann in 1989 at SFMOMA installing his show Beyond The Document. "I spent many hours looking at prints with him and archiving negatives." Reed said. "It was a long, dear friendship. I visited him almost everyday the last year of his life. I realized that the story really needed to be told through John's vision, through John's words."

"I didn't try to inject myself at all into the picture," Gutmann says. "As a photographer, I was content to just give the message." There is nothing insistent in Gutmann's voice, and the filmmaker allows his photographs to remain on-screen long enough for us to see their quiet power.

Elizabeth Cook-Romero

Writer, Pasatiempo, The New Mexican

John Gutmann has received important local, national, and international acclaim for his photography, especially in his later years. He was given two major solo exhibitions by this museum alone. The film by Jane Reed, My Eyes Were Fresh: The Life and Photographs of John Gutmann is a necessary and important contribution to the study of this great American artist, and one which, because of her friendship with him and the cooperation of many who knew him, provides valuable historical insight into this still understudied and under-acknowledged figure.

Sandra S. Phillips

Senior Curator of Photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Mr. Gutmann is an important example of an immigrating Jewish artist escaping Nazi Germany and discovering a new life as both a commercial and artistic photographer in America. The histories and success of Jews in other parts of the world are an important story to tell and Europe is hungry for these tales. Seen today, his work takes on a new kind of resonance that should be discovered by every generation.

Klaus Scheidsteger

Producer, Gesellschaft für audiovisuelle und akustische Communikation mbH

Jane Levy Reed's film is a marvelous glimpse into John Gutmann, an artist who out of necessity reinvented himself as a photographer of extraordinary images. Gutmann placed high demands on those he touched— I cannot but feel he would be very proud of Reed's richly textured look at his unique art and life.

Maia-Mari Sutnik

Curator of Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario

The film, My Eyes Were Fresh: The Life and Photographs of John Gutmann is a tremendous educational resource, with relevance to the history of photography, 20th-century art, and 20th-century culture and society as a whole. Reed herself is fully versed in the historical and photographic issues that Gutmann's film explores. Reed brings a deep understanding of Gutmann's work skillfully edited in his words with his images.

John Weber

Curator of Education and Public Programs, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Brilliant film. Foregrounding John as the elusive narrator was perfect strategy. The Kurt Weill-like music didn't hurt either. Film editing and music showed great perception and understanding of the Gutmann milieu. Good work.

Lew Thomas

Photographer, Artist, Curator and Director

Film Arts Foundation is the proud sponsor of My Eyes Were Fresh: The Life and Photographs of John Gutmann by Jane Levy Reed, director. We require that a director demonstrate high professional standards through previous work and propose a project that promises to be an imaginative contribution to the media arts field. Jane Levy Reed and My Eyes Were Fresh surpass our greatest expectations! BRAVO.

Gail Silva

Director, Film Arts Foundation

I have been meaning to write to tell you how stunned I was with the excellence of the DVD. It is truly fantastic. I watched every section, some twice. The depth of information is magnificent. I know quite a bit about John, and still feel I learned a lot. Your editing and the graciousness of the interviews came through! I love this kind of serious, comprehensive scholarship. I am thrilled to have been a part of it.

Mark Johnson

Assistant Professor and Gallery Director, San Francisco State University

When I was introduced to Gutmann's photographs, it was an astonishing discovery. Clearly Gutmann, who had been exiled from Germany in 1933, when Hitler's regime took power, had a new kind of vision that revealed his sense of wonder in the depiction of America, his new homeland. Throughout his impressive career as photographer, professor, filmmaker, and an inspiration to a generation of artists in San Francisco, Gutmann developed critical themes that captured central issues in American life and psyche. His vision polarized both the rational and the irrational, revealing a wide range of human emotions. I have noted in my writings on Gutmann that photographic history has no precise category for John Gutmann, and that he himself preferred to be linked with the "unclassifiable."

Maia-Mari Sutnik

Curator of Photography, Art Gallery of Ontario

























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Ham and Eggs, San Francisco, 1938; "We Want the 40 Hour Week", San Francisco, 1934; CWA (Civil Works Administration) Project Workers Waiting to Join the Funeral Parade for Killed Workers, General Strike, San Francisco, 1934; National Guardsmen on a Truck Patrolling San Francisco Streets, General Strike, San Francisco, 1934; National Guard Tanks Occupying San Francisco Waterfront, General Strike, San Francisco, 1934; Chow Time for Occupying National Guard, General Strike, San Francisco, 1934; Artillery on Market Street, San Francisco, 1934; Produce Area Occupied by National Guard, General Strike, San Francisco, 1934; Omen, 1934; Anti-Fascist Posters, San Francisco, 1938; The News Photographer, San Francisco City Hall, 1935; "Baron Von Hoffman for President", San Francisco, 1938; Monument to the Chicken Center of the World, Petaluma, California, 1936.
©1998 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents

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