In Search of Sadakichi Hartmann

I first became aware of Sadakichi Hartmann 25 years ago when I began working at the Banning

Public Library. Who was this man with the strange, exotic name who kept showing up in one

form or another? Everything I read about him or that was written by him intrigued me and I

began the search to find out more about Sadakichi. The intrigue grew when I discovered his

connection to the San Gorgonio Pass. How this world renown art critic, writer, poet, artist, and

socialite ended up living the last twenty years of his life in rural Beaumont and Banning was a

appointment.

Sadakichi died in 1944 and remembrances of him from Pass residents and family linger to this

day. Recent discoveries from the Guy Bogart Collection at the San Gorgonio Pass Historical

Society have added new insights into Sadakichi’s years in the Pass and I spent weeks going

through dusty boxes of diaries and correspondence between Sadakichi and former Beaumont

Mayor Guy Bogart.

This article will be published in three parts. The first will be a brief biography of Sadakichi, the

second will focus on his time spent in the San Gorgonio Pass, and the third will cover the Gene

Sadakichi Hartmann.

Sadakichi Hartmann’s unique life has inspired numerous works by biographers who have

attempted to capture the scope of his genius. From his early days in Europe and the eastern

United States to his final days on the Morongo Reservation Sadakichi observed life using a giant

pallet of mediums he was continually mastering to express his experiences. He traveled to the

major art capitals of Europe and the United States, passionately visiting museums and artists

from Whistler to Thomas Hart Benton. His artistic interests were not confined to visual arts. His

personal relationships with Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound and other poets and writers of the time

drew him into the world of words which became another form of expression for his visionary

view of life.

disinterested father with only a few dollars in his pocket. This seemingly heartless rejection by

his father was a source of bitterness and unresolved melancholy for much of Sadakichi’s life.

Sadakichi was sent to Philadelphia in 1882, at the age of 15. Sometimes living on one meal a

day and still in his teen years he worked a variety of menial jobs while studying art and writing

furiously. He spent his nights reading in the Philadelphia Mercantile Library and began building

an early foundation from which he created his own expressions of art.

Sadakichi and Walt Whitman

In 1884, at the age of 17, Sadakichi became entranced with the poetry of Walt Whitman and

sought him out as a mentor. He visited the poet in New Jersey and began a long and complex

relationship with Whitman who hired the young and brilliant Sadakichi as a translator for some

of his foreign correspondence. Sadakichi could read, write and speak English, French, and

German, but not Japanese.

In 1885, the 17 yr. old Hartmann left for Europe to explore its art galleries and museums. He

studied art and literature in Munich, Berlin, Brussels and Paris and worked as a stage apprentice

at the Royal Theater in Munich. During this time he studied all aspects of the theater as well as

ballet.

His study of ballet evolved into a dance form unique to Sadakichi. He was almost as well known

for his wild, improvised dances as he was for his writings and critiques. His dancing was said to

be an Influence on the iconoclastic modern dancer Isadora Duncan. Sadakichi continued these

improvisational dances into his later years. Journalist Harry Lawton quotes Banning attorney

Merrill Brown, who attended some Hollywood parties with Sadakichi in the 1930s, “He danced

like a graceful, whirling dervish.”

By this time Sadakichi was earning his reputation as a great art critic and writer. His brilliant use

of the English language was gaining the respect of scholars in the art world. Sadakichi’s years of

study were now exploding into numerous forms that would propel his creativity until the end of

his life.

Hartmann was one of the first to recognize photography as a true art form. Working with Alfred

Stieglitz he wrote articles and essays in early photographic journals, Camera News and Camera

Work. He wrote nearly 700 known published articles on the subject of photography often using

Sadakichi is probably best known for his writing. He published nine books, 12 plays, three

volumes of poetry, numerous pamphlets and articles, and a large collection of unpublished

works. In the late 1890s, Sadakichi began writing what would become one of his pivotal works,

of many religions and their central figures. Some of the historic religious subjects of his plays

were; Jesus Christ, Confucius, Mohammad and Boston friend and neighbor Mary Baker Eddy,

founder of Christian Science.

In 1893, Sadakichi published one of his first plays, “Christ.” The play was considered heretical

and most of the copies were confiscated and destroyed as Sadakichi spent the Christmas week

of 1893, in jail in Boston.

some of the water from that overflowing well of ideas incessantly needing to be expressed!” If

Sadakichi had lived in our time I believe he would have embraced every technology available to

him to create his art. Creativity for him was like eating, drinking, sleeping…..things you didn’t

have to think about doing. It was always there for him. The only question was what medium he

He wrote plays that required lighting not yet invented. He performed “perfume” concerts to

trigger olfactory responses and encouraged composers to write symphonic works for “electro-

magnetic music whose vibrations do not simulate orchestral instruments but open up

horizonless vistas of pure sound.” This was an obvious prophetic vision of electronic music,

synthesizers and later, digital sound creation and manipulation.

Sadakichi believed that the sense of smell was an unappreciated and underutilized art form that

could be used to express certain moods. In 1902, he conducted a perfume concert in Paris with

audience resulted in him being booed off of the stage, however the endeavor was a testament

to Hartmann’s creative and fertile imagination. He believed art had the ability to open other

worlds to the listener, viewer, or reader. He tried other perfume concerts with similar results.

Sadakichi’s striking physical features reflected his eccentric personality. He became the most

photographed and painted individual of his time. Painters, photographers and sculptors saw his

mesmerizing face as a model ready to be captured in their art.

Sadakichi was also famous for the famous people he surrounded himself with. His wit, life

experiences and observations, intellect, free spirited dancing, and occasional wild drinking

to Beaumont in the 1920s and later to the Morongo Reservation in the 1930s. Sadakichi did not

have a problem with self confidence and once proclaimed, “A man cannot help that other

people do not think him as great as he considers himself to be.”

While searching for “lands of shadows and dreams” in his art (Hartmann poem), Hartmann was

firmly anchored in and appreciative of this world. He believed in experiencing all that life had to

offer and could be considered a sensualist, even a hedonist by some, partaking of every aspect

of the human experience to its fullest. This earned him the reputation as the “King of Bohemia.”

His infamous hedonism was often tempered by ill health. Asthma and a severe hernia were his

most constant maladies but he also suffered two serious accidents which resulted in broken

ankles. Spending much of his life in pain he often chose the most available methods of

poverty because of your inability to compromise your brilliance begins to manifest itself and

eventually determine your fate. At one time Sadakichi said of himself, “My ailments are

exceeded only by my debts.”

artistic career. Those who knew him or even had a brief encounter with him never forgot his

powerful, affecting presence. In the words of art critic Arthur Millier he describes the

complexity of Sadakichi; “What you see is the mask, what you hear issuing from his throat in

abilities to express these extremes of the human condition. Sadakichi was not only a great

artist, he was a living work of art.

move to Beaumont in the 1920s, his relationship with Beaumont Mayor Guy Bogart, his final

move to the Morongo Reservation in the 1930s, the building of his cabin, Catclaw Siding, his

pastel paintings, and his love of Mt. San Jacinto.

Thanks to Wistaria Linton, Harry Lawton and George Knox in establishing the Sadakcihi

Hartmann archive at UCR’s Special Collections Department. Special thanks to the Banning Public

Decker – Sadakichi Portrait, 1940. Courtesy of UCR Special Collections.

For more information email: [email protected] or contact: 951-849-3192.