"This retrospective volume traces Gutmann's career from his training as a painter in Germany, first under renowned Expressionist Otto Muller, then in the wild, decadent Berlin of the 1930s, through his resolution to leave during Hitler's ascent to power, to his decision to settle in San Francisco. As a Jew, Gutmann was forbidden by the Nazis to exhibit or teach; photojournalism struck him as a useful means of supporting himself as a refugee. He had no training as a photographer and no interest in the medium as a pure art form, but he was fascinated by the popular culture of photography in magazines. Bringing to San Francisco the eye for the bizarre that he had developed in recording the vibrant, cosmopolitan life of Berlin - an eye further sensitized by his status as an exile in a strange country - Gutmann photographed the odd, the morbid, and the freakish with the detachment of an anthropologist examining an exotic culture."--Jacket.

Also issued online.

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