SADAKICHI HARTMANN: HERALD OF MODERNISM IN AMERICAN ART. (VOLUMES I AND II) (ART, PHOTOGRAPHY CRITICISM, SYMBOLISM, NINETEENTH CENTURY, NEW YORK)

Sadakichi Hartmann (1867-1944) was an art critic and writer in the United States during the latter-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although his name is remembered in American photographic history, his role in that field, as well as his importance to the development of American painting and sculpture, has been virtually overlooked by scholars.;During Sadakichi Hartmann's years in Boston in the late eighties and especially during his years in New York from 1889-1911, he became a sagacious, perceptive observer of the American art world. Hartmann wrote early, important pieces on Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer and Albert P. Ryder; some of his close acquaintances and artistic subjects were those painters who later would be called "The Eight". Hartmann's Art News of the late nineties was only one of many publications where his untraditional, pithy criticism could be found; his books, A History of American Art (1902), Modern American Sculpture (1902), and The Whistler Book (1910) are fundamental to the period.;Alfred Stieglitz was Hartmann's closest friend and confidante; their relationship began in 1898 and lasted for thirty years. Hartmann's influence on Stieglitz and his role with the Photo-Secessionists, particularly as evidenced by his prolific writing for Camera Notes and Camera Work, resulted in one of his most lasting contributions to American art history.;Sadakichi Hartmann's truly vast circle of cultural acquaintances, his ability to identify and define shifting art issues at the turn of the century and his lifelong determination to further a great American art proclaim him to be a key figure in the American intellectual tradition.;Born in Japan and raised in Germany, Hartmann came alone to America in his early teens. Because of his friendships in Philadelphia literary circles the young man became acquainted with Walt Whitman, who remained his great American mentor. Journeys to Munich and Paris in the early nineties provided him with contacts among the Symbolists and a sophisticated understanding of the fin de siecle. Hartmann's enthusiasm for the burgeoning modernism of Europe and his yearning to champion a great national art in America led him to publish the remarkable, even if short-lived, Art Critic that was widely circulated among American artists.