Sadakichi Hartmann
Sadakichi Hartmann was a multifaceted figure born in 1867 in Nagasaki, Japan, to a German merchant father and a Japanese mother. After his mother’s early death, he was raised in Germany before moving to the United States in 1882, where he became deeply involved in the artistic circles of the time. Hartmann was an art critic, playwright, and an advocate for photography as a legitimate art form, publishing influential works like *Shakespeare in Art* and contributing essays to *Camera Work*. His notable play, *Christ: A Dramatic Poem in Three Acts*, led to his arrest for obscenity in Boston, highlighting his controversial approach to art and literature.
Throughout the 1910s, Hartmann became a prominent figure in the Bohemian movement, earning the nickname "the King of Bohemia." Despite a decline in productivity during his later years, he continued to mentor younger artists and engaged with Hollywood luminaries, even acting in a film. Hartmann's legacy has been complicated; while he made significant contributions to American art criticism and photography, he remains a relatively overlooked figure in art history. His life was characterized by a blend of artistic ambition and personal tumult, ultimately culminating in a search for self-expression that left a lasting, if understated, impact on American arts.
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Sadakichi Hartmann
Japanese-born writer, art critic, and actor
- Born: November 28, 1867
- Birthplace: Nagasaki, Japan
- Died: November 21, 1944
- Place of death: St. Petersburg, Florida
Sadakichi Hartmann was a multitalented novelist, art critic, poet, and dramatist who was as famous for his flamboyant style as he was for his well-written critiques. Born in Japan and raised in Germany, he came to the United States when he was fifteen years old. He quickly assimilated into the Bohemian world of art and culture and made a name for himself as the King of the Bohemians.
Birth name: Carl Sadakichi Hartmann
Areas of achievement: Literature, theater
Early Life
Sadakichi Hartmann was born in Nagasaki, Japan, in 1867, the child of a German merchant father and a Japanese mother. His mother died shortly after his birth, and he was sent to Hamburg, Germany, to be raised by his uncle Ernst Hartmann. When his father returned to Germany and remarried, Sadakichi was sent to a naval academy. He left the academy and moved to Paris, France, without his father’s knowledge. Upon learning this, the elder Hartmann sent Sadakichi to live with another uncle in Philadelphia.
Sadakichi Hartmann landed in the United States in the spring of 1882 and began working at numerous odd jobs. He also began writing. He developed a taste for experimental European literature and art, including French and Dutch symbolism, and made many friends in the artistic movements of the time. Hartmann befriended American poet Walt Whitman, who mentored Hartmann until his death in 1892.
Life’s Work
From 1885 to 1892, Hartmann made trips to Europe to study literature, theater, and art. He also worked as an art critic for several magazines. He befriended several notable European artists, including composer Franz Liszt.
Hartmann settled in Boston in 1893. He began a journal of art criticism, The Art Journal, and gained notoriety in 1893 with the publication of his play Christ: A Dramatic Poem in Three Acts, part of a cycle focused on religious leaders. The play asserted that Jesus had brothers and sisters and included a scene where a woman tries to seduce Jesus. Hartmann was arrested on obscenity charges on December 21, 1893, after distributing the play around Boston. He remained in jail until January 2, 1894. He pleaded guilty and was fined one hundred dollars.
While in Boston, Hartmann also published his book Shakespeare in Art (1901). His History of American Art appeared the following year and became standard reading for art students until the 1930s.
Hartmann is also well known for his advocacy of the fine-art photographers of the early twentieth century. Photography had little recognition as an art form at that time, being viewed more as a technological novelty. Hartmann wrote many essays for the magazine Camera Work, encouraging fledgling photographers. In 1978, a collection of Hartmann’s critical essays on photography was published in a book entitled The Valiant Knights of Daguerre.
Hartmann spent most of the 1910s in the Roycrofters Arts and Crafts Colony in upstate New York. He also spent time in Greenwich Village in New York City, where he continued to write and socialize with the influential artists of the Bohemian movement. He himself earned the nickname the King of Bohemia.
From 1914 to 1923, Hartmann’s notoriety peaked, even as his productivity plummeted. At that time, he was convinced that it was time to publish a grand statement that included his comprehensive views on art and life. As a result, he was preoccupied with work on a sprawling manuscript titled Esthetic Verities, which was never published.
In 1923, Hartmann moved to California, hoping the warm weather would ease his worsening asthma. He tried his hand at writing movie scripts but was never successful. He did, however, befriend actor John Barrymore, who got him his first and only part in a Hollywood film: He played a magician in the film The Thief of Bagdad (1924), starring Douglas Fairbanks. The last chapter of Hartmann’s life saw him develop a long association with several early luminaries of Hollywood film, including Douglas Fairbanks. Hartmann became famous for his heavy drinking and relationships with several women. By the time he died, he had fathered many children, both in and out of wedlock.
Hartmann also cultivated and mentored a group of young artists, many of them graduates of the Art Students League of Los Angeles, including Ben Berlin and Einar Hansen. He met with these young artists for frequent discussions and provided a valuable link from one generation of art pioneers to the next.
Eventually, Hartmann left Hollywood and supervised the building of a small shack in inland California, located next to the home of one of his daughters. In 1944, he visited another daughter in St. Petersburg, Florida, with plans to write his autobiography at last. He died there in November of that year.
Significance
Decades after his death, Hartmann remains a neglected figure in the world of American arts and letters. His contributions to the study of American art and photography and his fascinating theatrical experiments are undeniable. After a brief flurry of interest in his work in the 1970s, Hartmann once again slipped into obscurity. His relentless efforts to forge his life into a work of art had the unintended effect of burying his substantial contributions to literary and art criticism.
Bibliography
Hartmann, Sadakichi. The Valiant Knights of Daguerre: Selected Critical Essays on Photography and Profiles of Photographic Pioneers. Ed. Harry Lawton and George Knox. Los Angeles: U of California P, 1978. Print. A collection of Hartmann’s essays on photography and film, including an essay on the sojourn of filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in Hollywood.
---. Buddha, Confucius, Christ: Three Prophetic Plays. Ed. Harry Lawton and George Knox. New York: Herder, 1971. Print. Includes a detailed account of Hartmann’s 1893 arrest and conviction on obscenity charges in Boston in its introduction.
University of California, Riverside. The Life and Times of Sadakichi Hartmann, 1867–1944. Riverside: U of California P, 1970. Print. A collection of paintings and photographs by and about Hartmann. An introduction written by Harry Lawton discusses the key reasons why Hartmann was neglected.