Bernhard Gutmann ― An American Impressionist, 1869-1936

A Major Impressionist and Post-Impressionist, Bernhard Gutmann (1869-1936) recorded his travels and the joys of family life in paintings distinguished by luscious color and an exuberant sensibility. He was not only a painter who received serious critical acclaim during his lifetime but also a beloved teacher, a successful illustrator, and a master of ceramic and graphic art. In addition, Gutmann had a great influence on American regional art: he organized the still-thriving Lynchburg Art Club in Virginia and later helped establish the influential Silvermine Guild of Artists in New Canaan, Connecticut.
Born and educated in Germany, Gutmann arrived in the United States at the age of twenty-three. From modest beginnings - he emigrated to Virginia to work as an electrician - he quickly rose to become the first superintendent of drawing in the Lynchburg public schools. After moving to New York and marrying Bertha Goldman, granddaughter of the founder of the investment banking firm Goldman Sachs, he was financially secure and free to concentrate on his art alone. The last decades of his life were spent in Connecticut, where he raised his family, and in traveling to Europe with his wife and daughters.
Because Gutmann had no need to sell his art, it remained with his family rather than going to the galleries, auction houses, and museums that would have kept it in the public eye. His work therefore was little known from his death until his "rediscovery" in 1988, when Gutmann was lauded as "an American Gauguin." Percy North's authoritative text - interwoven with private journals and letters as well as reviews and other period commentary - captures the spirit and the skill of this charming and extremely gifted artist. Gutmann's affectionate and incisive portraits, his foreign genre scenes and landscapes, and his tranquil still lifes are lavishly reproduced in this handsome volume, which will enchant all those who finally have the pleasure of discovering Gutmann's work.

Percy North is Professor of Art History at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland.