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Bernhard Gutmann
1869–1936
BirthplaceHamburg, Germany
Death placeNew York, New York, United States of America
BiographyIn a wide-ranging career spent in both Europe and America, Bernhard Gutmann created paintings, prints, and graphic designs, taught art, served as an arts administrator, and published several art manuals. Gutmann was born in Hamburg, Germany, the son of a merchant; he was educated in elite schools and attended the art academies of Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe. Rejecting the pedantry of academic training, he worked in Haarlem, in the Netherlands, before emigrating to the United States to join his brother, an electrical engineer and inventor, in Lynchburg, Virginia. The energetic and gregarious Gutmann organized the Lynchburg Art Club, painted a mural, designed book illustrations, and taught widely, including at the newly founded Randolph-Macon Woman’s College. In 1899 he moved to New York City to work as a graphic designer while continuing to paint using the dark color schemes in which he had been schooled in Germany.
With his marriage in 1907 to financial heiress Bertha Goldman, Gutmann was freed permanently to pursue his art with little concern for the opinions of critics and patrons. Working in Europe for the next five years, he embraced the bright colors and vibrant brushwork of impressionism in his landscapes, figure paintings, and still lifes. On his return to the United States in 1912, Gutmann pursued numerous opportunities to exhibit his work in his adopted homeland. He contributed paintings to several conservative juried exhibitions, but he also was represented in the so-called Armory Show of 1913, a showcase for the latest trends in European and American modern art. Gutmann’s work met with considerable critical favor even as it shifted toward the concerns of post-impressionism, with its expressive use of strong color, richly textured surfaces, and powerful outlining of forms.
In 1913, Gutmann and his family joined the artists’ colony at Silvermine, Connecticut, one of several East Coast centers for the development of indigenous American artistic expression at the turn of the twentieth century. Gutmann helped organize the Silvermine Guild of Artists in 1922. He returned to his Silvermine home after a three-year visit to Spain and Paris. He then turned his attention to ceramics and to printmaking. A trip to Europe just after the collapse of the Stock Market in 1929 inspired a new burst of creativity in various drawing media and resulted in exhibitions at several New York City galleries. In 1934, Gutmann was appointed regional director of the Public Works of Art Project, a federal artists’ relief program, for New Canaan, Connecticut. The artist’s productivity had begun to decline as his health failed, however, and after his death Gutmann was virtually forgotten. His freedom from financial pressure to promote, sell, and strategically place his work meant that it largely disappeared from public view. With the purchase of Breton Lacemakers (TF 1988.18) in 1988, the Terra Museum of American Art became the first American museum to acquire a painting by Gutmann.
With his marriage in 1907 to financial heiress Bertha Goldman, Gutmann was freed permanently to pursue his art with little concern for the opinions of critics and patrons. Working in Europe for the next five years, he embraced the bright colors and vibrant brushwork of impressionism in his landscapes, figure paintings, and still lifes. On his return to the United States in 1912, Gutmann pursued numerous opportunities to exhibit his work in his adopted homeland. He contributed paintings to several conservative juried exhibitions, but he also was represented in the so-called Armory Show of 1913, a showcase for the latest trends in European and American modern art. Gutmann’s work met with considerable critical favor even as it shifted toward the concerns of post-impressionism, with its expressive use of strong color, richly textured surfaces, and powerful outlining of forms.
In 1913, Gutmann and his family joined the artists’ colony at Silvermine, Connecticut, one of several East Coast centers for the development of indigenous American artistic expression at the turn of the twentieth century. Gutmann helped organize the Silvermine Guild of Artists in 1922. He returned to his Silvermine home after a three-year visit to Spain and Paris. He then turned his attention to ceramics and to printmaking. A trip to Europe just after the collapse of the Stock Market in 1929 inspired a new burst of creativity in various drawing media and resulted in exhibitions at several New York City galleries. In 1934, Gutmann was appointed regional director of the Public Works of Art Project, a federal artists’ relief program, for New Canaan, Connecticut. The artist’s productivity had begun to decline as his health failed, however, and after his death Gutmann was virtually forgotten. His freedom from financial pressure to promote, sell, and strategically place his work meant that it largely disappeared from public view. With the purchase of Breton Lacemakers (TF 1988.18) in 1988, the Terra Museum of American Art became the first American museum to acquire a painting by Gutmann.