Johan Hagemeyer (1 June 1884 21 May 1962) was a Dutch-born horticulturalist and vegetarian who is remembered primarily for being an early 20th century photographer and artistic intellectual.

Life and work

Hagemeyer was born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, the Netherlands. His family came to California to grow fruit trees, but in 1916 he met photographer

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...

, who convinced him to devote his life to the then emerging world of artistic photography. In 1923 Hagemeyer opened a portrait studio in San Francisco, which he occupied primarily from October thru early April. In 1922 Hagemeyer built a spring-summer studio in

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California Carmel-by-the-Sea (), often simply called Carmel, is a city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated on October 31, 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, Carmel is known for its natural scenery and ric ...

, at that time the largest art colony on the Pacific coast, and donated his photographs that December to a local fund-raising exhibit. It was here that Hagemeyer met

Edward Weston Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...

, who encouraged him to further his career in photography. He moved his Carmel address in 1924 to a new "artfully designed studio" at the prominent junction of Mountain View and Ocean Avenues, which became a meeting place for intellectuals as well as a "gallery" to display the works of local and visiting artists. An online facsimile of the entire text of Vol. 1 is posted on the Traditional Fine Arts Organization website (). In 1928 he relocated to a significantly larger "Johan Hagemeyer Studio-Gallery," where he devoted an entire room to his own pictorial art and held major exhibitions of prominent Post-Impressionists painters, such as

Henrietta Shore Henrietta Mary Shore (January 22, 1880 – May 17, 1963) was a Canadian-born artist who was a pioneer of modernism. She lived a large part of her life in the United States, most notably California. Early life Shore was born in Toronto, Canada, to ...

, as well as art photographers, including Edward Weston. In February 1932 at the

Haggin Museum The Haggin Museum is an art museum and local history museum in Stockton, San Joaquin County, California, located in the city's Victory Park. The museum opened in 1931. Its art collection includes works by European painters Jean Béraud, Rosa Bonh ...

Stockton, California Stockton is a city in and the county seat of San Joaquin County, California, San Joaquin County in the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. Stockton was founded by Carlos Maria Weber in 1849 after he acquir ...

Hagemeyer displayed his photographs in a joint exhibition with Carmel's most famous Impressionist painter,

William Frederic Ritschel William Frederic Ritschel, also known as Wilhelm Frederick Ritschel (1864–1949), was a California impressionist painter who was born in Nuremberg, Germany on July 11, 1864. Germany and New York After completing his education at a regional Gy ...

. Through the spring and summer of 1938 he exhibited his landscape and portrait photos at the Guild of Carmel Craftsmen. From the 1920s through the 1940s Hagemeyer photographed leading figures of the day, including

Pedro Joseph de Lemos Pedro Joseph de Lemos (25 May 1882 – 5 December 1954) was an American painter, printmaker, architect, illustrator, writer, lecturer, museum director and art educator in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to about 1930 he used the simpler name Ped ...

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

, and

Salvador Dalí Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, Marquess of Dalí of Púbol (; ; ; 11 May 190423 January 1989) was a Spanish Surrealism, surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill, precise draftsmanship, and the striking and bizarr ...

. However, he sometimes retouched or manipulated his photos, which went against the beliefs of Weston. His refusal to adhere to Weston's views was a major cause in a growing alienation of the two men. When Weston,

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advoca ...

and others founded

Group f/64 Group 64 or f.64 was a group founded by seven 20th-century San Francisco Bay Area photographers who shared a common photographic style characterized by sharply focused and carefully framed images seen through a particularly Western (U.S.) viewpo ...

, devoted to

straight Straight may refer to: Slang * Straight, slang for heterosexual ** Straight-acting, an LGBT person who does not exhibit the appearance or mannerisms of the gay stereotype * Straight, a member of the straight edge subculture Sport and games * Str ...

, unmanipulated photography, Hagemeyer did not join. The Johan Hagemeyer Photograph Collection at the

Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

at the University of California, Berkeley, contains the approximately 6,785 photographic prints and negatives which made up Hagemeyer's personal archive at the time of his death in Berkeley in 1962. A smaller collection of prints, negatives and correspondence is at the

Center for Creative Photography The Center for Creative Photography (CCP), established in 1975 and located on the University of Arizona's Tucson campus, is a research facility and archival repository containing the full archives of over sixty of the most famous American pho ...

(CCP) in

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

, Arizona, and the CCP has released a digital catalog of Hagemeyer's photograph collection.

References

Bibliography

* Myers, Roger and Judith Leckrone. ''Johan Hagemeyer Collection, Guides Series Number 11'' (Tucson: Center for Creative Photography, 1985)

External links

Finding Aid to the Johan Hagemeyer Photograph Collection, circa 1908-circa 1955
at

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hagemeyer, Johan 1884 births 1962 deaths Photographers from Amsterdam People from Carmel-by-the-Sea, California 20th-century American photographers Dutch emigrants to the United States American horticulturists