A Jewish painter living under the Nazi regime in the early 1930s, John Gutmann (1905-1998) was barred from exhibiting and teaching. He took up photography as he prepared to flee Germany and set out to start a new life in San Francisco. As a refugee in Depression-struck America, he made a living as a photojournalist. Without formal training in the field or even a particular interest in photography as an art form, Gutmann relied on his background in painting and on his fascination with American popular culture to document, and to some extent define, a dynamic era of American history.

The Photography of John Gutmann: Culture Shock was a survey exhibition of one hundred photographs selected by Gutmann before his death in 1998. These images reflect a culture shocked by its own agitation and movement — a world of fast-paced change and social turbulence — while revealing Gutmann’s unique appreciation of American iconography and his eye for the odd, the morbid, and the freakish. Costumes from the 1930s from the Henry’s collection were added to the exhibition.