John Gutmann was born in Silesia, in what is today Poland. He immigrated to the United States in 1937, settling in San Francisco. Having worked as a photojournalist in Berlin, he was drawn to the lively social mix of his newly adopted city and was inspired to document what struck him as the exotic and unconventional aspects of American popular culture - the bustle of its street life, the ubiquitous automobile, urban graffiti, and signs. This witty pairing of a sad-eyed, painted clown and a rather predatory, heavily made-up woman is the sort of juxtaposition Gutmann particularly enjoyed, as it captured for him the "marvelous extravagance" of life in the United States.

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