Joan Fenton Gutmann

1924 - 2020
May 3, 1924 (New York City) - May 4, 2020 (Dallas)

Known as Joan Fenton throughout her professional life in New York City, she studied at Cooper Union, under Alexey Brodovitch and was chosen to work with him as an assistant at Harpers Bazaar under the editorship of Carmel Snow.
Immediately after World War II, Joan joined her husband, Karl Gutmann (married 1946-1969), to live in Paris where she studied under Andre Lhote and returned to New York City after their first daughter was born.
Many of her friends and contemporaries like Richard Avedon, Lillian Bassman, Paul Himmel, Otto Fenn and Diane Arbus became the preeminent photographers of the day. Joan's interests lay with Art Direction and these photographers became the mainstay of Seventeen Magazine when she was hired as their art director in 1953 by Enid A. Haupt. She commissioned illustrations for the editorials, giving a start to many artists who went on to have stellar careers, such as Andy Warhol, Milton Glazer, and Jeanette LeRoy.
Joan worked at Seventeen for twenty years and later continued her career launching The New Ingenue magazine with Joanna Brown and Woman's Sports magazine with Billie Jean King, and as Creative Director of Simplicity Patterns.
After moving to Kingston, New York she concentrated on painting and mixed media sculptures and assemblage.
Her intelligence, warmth and friendship will be deeply missed by her three daughters, Aimee Gage (Dallas, TX), Linda Brown (London, England) and Suzanne Bond (Sag Harbor, NY) as well as her four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. Joan passed away on May 4th after a short illness the day after her 96th birthday at her daughter and son-in law's home in Texas.