author
Sadakichi Hartmann
1867–1944
A restless, genre-crossing writer and critic, he helped early American audiences take photography seriously as an art form while also bringing Japanese poetic forms into English-language verse.
2 Audiobooks
The Whistler book : a monograph of the life and position in art of James McNeill Whistler, together with a careful study of his more important works
by Sadakichi Hartmann
My Rubaiyat
by Sadakichi Hartmann
About the author
Born in Nagasaki in 1867 to a German father and a Japanese mother, Sadakichi Hartmann was raised largely in Europe before coming to the United States as a teenager. He became known as an art critic, poet, novelist, and playwright, building a reputation as one of those lively literary figures who seemed to move between scenes rather than stay in just one of them.
Hartmann is especially remembered for his writing on art and photography, including his connection to Alfred Stieglitz and the magazine Camera Work. He also published poetry that drew on forms such as tanka and haiku, helping introduce Japanese rhythms to English-language readers at a time when that was still unusual in American literary culture.
His life was as unconventional as his work. Drawn to bohemian and radical circles, he remained a distinctive presence in American letters into the twentieth century, leaving behind a body of criticism and poetry that still stands out for its mix of cosmopolitan influences and artistic curiosity.