"X Marks the Spot Where Ralph Will Die"
Trained as a painter, Gutmann fled Germany for America in 1933. In need of money, the artist began photographing across the country as a foreign correspondent for the tremendously popular picture magazines of his homeland, which had an insatiable appetite for all things American. What began as an assignment in exile--travelling from New York, Chicago, and Detroit to New Orleans and San Francisco--became a remarkable lifelong career in a new medium and country.
One of the earliest and most inventive practitioners of street photography, Gutmann was one of the great poets and chroniclers of a particularly American kind of city life--the endless supply of characters and spontaneous dramas set against a backdrop of skyscrapers, signs, and graffiti.
One of the earliest and most inventive practitioners of street photography, Gutmann was one of the great poets and chroniclers of a particularly American kind of city life--the endless supply of characters and spontaneous dramas set against a backdrop of skyscrapers, signs, and graffiti.
Artwork Details
- Title: "X Marks the Spot Where Ralph Will Die"
- Artist: John Gutmann (American (born Germany), Breslau 1905–1998 San Francisco, California)
- Date: 1938
- Medium: Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions: 23.4 x 17.8 cm (9 3/16 x 7 in.)
- Classification: Photographs
- Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
- Object Number: 1987.1100.449
- Rights and Reproduction: © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents
- Curatorial Department: Photographs
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