October 20, 2008

Gutmann Photography Fellowship Winner Announced

(SAN FRANCISCO) – Monday, October 20, 2008 – The San Francisco Foundation announced today that Alessandra Sanguinetti, of New York City, is the winner of the eighth John Gutmann Photography Fellowship. The Fellowship selects an emerging artist in the field of creative photography who exhibits professional accomplishment, serious artistic commitment, and financial need. Along with the prestige and recognition of receiving the award, this year’s fellowship includes a $10,000 prize.

Alessandra was born in New York City in 1968 and currently lives and works in both Buenos Aires and New York City. Her work has been exhibited extensively abroad, including a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires, and is part of several collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the International Center of Photography, New York. She has been awarded numerous grants and prizes, including the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Hasselblad Foundation Grant, and Rencontres d’Arles Discovery Award.

The world-renowned artist, John Gutmann, who passed away in 1998, established the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship Trust at The San Francisco Foundation. Gutmann began his career in Berlin during the early 1930s and emigrated to San Francisco when the Nazis banned his exhibitions and forbade him to teach. For more than 60 years thereafter, he was a recognized presence in the cultural life of San Francisco as a painter, educator, collector, and, most prominently, as an international photographer. He had exhibited in numerous institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts (Lausanne, Switzerland). He also taught at San Francisco State University over a 37 year period until his retirement in 1973. He founded the department of photography in 1946, one of the first on a college campus.

The San Francisco Foundation (TSFF) is the community foundation serving the Bay Area since 1948 with current assets of more than $1 billion. Through the generosity and vision of our donors, TSFF awarded grants totaling $89 million in fiscal year 2007. Bringing together donors and building on community assets through grantmaking, leveraging, public policy, advocacy, and leadership development, TSFF addresses community needs in the areas of community health, education, arts and culture, community development, and the environment. The San Francisco Foundation is a community foundation serving San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Mateo Counties.