SF State history: Photography as fine art

Posted Fri, 09/26/2008 - 7:00am by Matt Itelson

The late Art Professor John Gutmann founded the creative photography program at SF State as the first curriculum in the U.S. to teach photography as fine art, in 1946 — the same year Ansel Adams and Minor White established one of the nation's first fine art photography departments, at the San Francisco Art Institute.

In a career that spanned more than five decades, Gutmann took photographs that connected 20th century American culture with European modernism. At SF State he also established the Art Movies Series, which explored the Bay Area’s experimental film industry from 1949 to 1963.

Gutmann shot this picture of two students in his 1941 poster design class.

This and many more historical nuggets about SF State can be found in "San Francisco State University," a recent book by Meredith Eliassen (B.A., Radio and Television, '88). The book, published by Arcadia, is an unauthorized pictorial history of the University.