Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California
Johan Hagemeyer
PHOTOGRAPHER
An Interview Conducted by Corinne L. Gilb in 1955
copyright @ 1957 by the Regents of the University of California A11 uses of this nanuacrtpt are covered by an agreement 1 between the Regents of the University of California and I I I Johan Hagemeyer, dated January 23, 1956. The manuscript i is thereby made available for research purposes. All . 1 literary rights in the manuscript, including the exclusive right to publish, are reserved to the General I Library of the University of California at Eerkeley. I No part of the maxluscript may be quoted for publication i I except by mitten permission of the Librarian of the . j University. of California st Berkeley.
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IITRODUCTION
Joilan Hagemeyer s photographic studio was ' a gathering place for the great, the talented, end t? born vivents of legendary Carmel. Broodix Robins- Jeffers and wild George Sterling were eqzlallyhis friends. Interpreting swiftly and intuitively,
following the Stieglitz tradition of using only . . L,. natural light, Hagemeyer made portraits which were more than merely photographs. Physicist -4lbert
Einstein, philosopher Constan Zarin, astronomer
Edwin Hubble, artist Salvadore Dali, singer . .
Roland Hayes and others cane to him ta be 2.. photographed. . - . . . Repelled by its postwar atmosphere of tearoamss .. and gift shoppes, Hagemeyer left Camnel and
eventually set u-p his studio south .or the ca~puslk L. Berkeley in what had been, at the turn of the century, a farmhouse.
. The following interview was tape-recoA-ded
- there, in Play and again in Julg, 1955, in Ms parlor-studio--a lwge well-lit, sparsely but elegantly furnished room with Oriental 'scatter
rqs on the bare floors and n grand piano mich
was sold not long after to -help pay nedGal 5111s- . . _I ......
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8 . . ;j $5 [ 1 . - . .. - White haired now, Hagemeyer was frail and ill, I somewhat lonely, still with a fierce pride in t i his art. I There is something about Hagemeyer that reminds one of Rembrandt--something beyond their :.: I I comon national origin and certain parallels in L their life stories. Perhaps it is bscause i Hagemeyer has certain qualities which are universal mong artists. At any rate, this interview was recorded as part of a series documenting, through a study
of individual lives, the cultural history of '. this region. 1: -. 1:.v- ti:-, Corinne L. Gilb I. f -" Regional Cultural History Project University of California Library at Berkeley 23 Januarg 1956 1,: . i f t. INTRODUCTION EARLY LIFE IN 'ilOLLAh3, 188.4-1911 TO TFd VNITEII STA%S PAXI CALIFORNIA, 1911; WORK IN EOIITICL?TiJRE CHANGE TO PHOT3GXiPZ, 1917; ALF-%El STIEGLITZ ANARCE1SI.I ATXI T3XAR !53i39S; ?JITH DWAFD WESTON IN LOS mG.laXs. SAN FRILYCISCO AX3 CLR-, TIi6 192088 A SiIORT STAY II? FASAiXSA AN3 HOLLYlr'OOD , 1929 ABOCT LOVE ANi) 1-33~~&3
HOW WG3jEYEFI 3XLSES A PORTXAIT
INFLUENCES . . Psychology and Philosophy Music Art
MKIBITING EARLY LIFE IN HOLUND, 1884-1911
Gilb: I've noticed In-your press clippings and in all the infornation about you, you never mention your birthdate. Are you retioent about that? Wo, not I personally. I feel the same way about &thg xy pictures, People go by dates, I don't, I don't think Soozates was born in B, C, or otheyise. He waa born for me tom. BsfI va$ born on the first of June on Ehitsuadpy $n 1884, That's, a religious holiday, the e-tk -day after Easter, Perhaps it is celebrated more conacioualy fa Europe, but I Inward It nientioned the o&er day here, khen you say you were born on a religious hoPi&no, does that iniply that you were aware of re~ous.., I am relfgiously hol1ns.d ad I have occasionally tbt%%htthat that have something to do ui&hit, but I am not an astrologer, I was
In June, &Ich id a vei9y bad mcnth, the bnlni month, a dusality nature, so-called. Gilb: Iis th& a key to your personaUtyt ~~~:Xt aam-9 to be, decidedly. Perhaps bhe word 'txxb~valesnt" describes it betiter. Gilb: What was your father's occupatlonf in i Hageaeyer: He was engaged some work In a sugar refiqery 1. . in Amsterdam,
Gilb: How would you describe your family? Middle-
Hagemeyer: Middle-class, decidedly, Oilb : Were there other brothers and aiatera? Hagerneyer: I was one of four brothers and I had one sister. i Xy sister was the oldeat and then came a boy, 1. and then there was another boy rho drowned; I 1! was born before he drowned. i- Gilb: Were you a olose-bit family2 i Hagemsyert I think the family ma, but I never waa very k' cloae . Qilb: When you eagle to the Cnlted Statee, did yau t t ooma alone? I. I was very close when I became mature I Hagemeyer: No, no, i I to another brother, who was the youngest, We i !
were more than congenial and did a @?eat many i i things together later on in our more mature t ;'.
Gilb r You describe youraelf am am htelleotual and I wondered if you got i;hose leanings from your C
fasily. %re there book8 md mt at bomb? I Ihqeneyert No, I dontt fhhk I got it firm anyone, It
was just er natuxal, ins';;insf;ive tlainq with ma. ! ! 3 I i i I Gilb: You wepe regarded so by your family? I- Bagemeyer: Yes, kind of, The3 always thought me kind of I queep, going after things they weren't used to and sometimes I was really criticized for it. b I Ulb: What were the values for a middle-class Dutch I family of that tlme, specifically your famlilyt I Did they believe in hard work? Were they I Proteatantsf t Bagemeyer: Yen, they were Proteetanta. Gilb : Was thrift one of their valueaf Bagemeyer: Hard working, very thrifty, It is not easy for me to find a reaeon for oertain thingr. Uke a sport in plata, I was jaet different from C-I -1 any of +&em, except m7be I was much oloser to 1- my mother, She was alao a religious person, I i very undoptio, very intelligent, very sensitive. j I had always trouble in sohool. I was never well; I was very aickly and always hove i' i- I been, 1 Gilb t Did you do well in your atudiea? r 1I 1- 1 Hagemeyer: In some etudiee, decideuy well, t Gilb : Wch st~dlgr~f i i I 4 I ! bgepreyer: I anppoae literature, reading, and drawing. t i 1 2 Ugalike that. Not arithrastic. Not mything 1 1 1 ? I that ier in the Pine,...I nirve~stueigd mtke- I i 3 =tics, buf; I never was very good at those I f I , thiaga. - I 1. i1 t i - ! 6i I -.!' I
I i Wbat do you call it when you are not t i promoted from one grade to enother..,ilunked. Gilb : You flunked, Hagemeyer: Flunked, oh yes. I was almost proud of it,
That was grammar schocl, And of course, in my later years at school I waa quite a revo1utio~- ar;r already. For that I was punished nmny times. Gilb: What would you be revolutionam against? Eagemeyer : @bet anything that is accepted, the coniorPlity of my own family perhopa. Hence, I left funne,
How f~ did 80 b 80h001
fafteen or so, ashich fn EoUand almost Included. - .
]high achool. , It #as =ore Intensive. We were
more literate, rey, tW acme ot tltbe yourrge-Fa
I f2nd hare Ssl high achool. When you were a boy, did yau bavs ayideas
about what you wanted to becme -hea you pew UP? No, I bwd nothag to slay about it, md, of oowse, thaw ~rsssnted. too. I was jut pushed hto bushears. Tha"Ua nor% lxcauss OF my -
mother, xho bad ea+~t;ai~raup*ationa md tXdntt
wmf;my or" her 5oya to 203.0~~YT fra%zsrla
ar&er.: She fantad $0 have *ago sa, 23. !?a . . associate with a different kind of people, to j get Into really another class.. Tfiere ia leas I now, but of course there was, like anywhere else, a great deal of class distinction. There was a time in my bualneaa career life when I would almost rather not mention what my father was doing, because it mI@ be bld more or lesa against me. Not today ud lesa when X left . Naturally I believe in evolution. Somethbg
~rustevolve and not stand still, so I al-ya
fiotion, bther it ma tht'I was already Interested in ph3.loeo?ky, maia, art...
BaLgemeyer: Rlgh!. I sought always people Pho knew more and who were older than I ma. Hot coaeciously, but inatfnctively, nancPally. f do that yet,
sxcept now I go back to grcstath. &so, I waa rather a regular boy and not a nice boy, Qilb: Are you speaklrg of wine, '%men md song2
Ekgmeyes: Xo, =to; I ra%har neglecZed was8 in n$r emly goufh Sscsuse I e?xdia&. I b~dicleali and idrics sad I had to studS '*sa ~gimgss. Be
. . baa no the. . .- .;(.- ... . . Gilb: Were you a juvenile delinquent? Hagemeyer : No, I was not, I was a street urchin.. I wae a 1 ! rebel and a fighter. I oould tak~a certain I! side md I would fight for it, I Was 7-0 I Hot strong but very quick, and a g~odtalker. i i Then, when you say you were not a nice boy, you ! I.E aaan your badnee8 ma linked wlth your idealism2 !' Bagemeyer t In a way, 1..
Gilb: 5tbusbe88 did have YOU go into? 1i i Hagemeyer: Zur~urmosbroke~age. It ma wonderful. Of r,. o~urse,you need =ittinetiu ad there I pioksd 1 i up =ore than in sohml, because it ma i
Gilbt You were . good t it Hagemeyer : Mr tronbb ms, whatever oareer I would go into, I I 1-3 always topa, agafa8t my om desire or I I holination . t We~syou interested irr horticultars at that time2 i ! Only intersated ?m f lowera and lue, natxrd, ! I Ue, and Ugernd watching plants ae a hobbr, I dwiaya. kt then I bec~me,not =ah later, a I
ves~-m,r~mbecause I got bterestd in Tolstoi I phi~osopders, hat was the time of vegetarianism. . ! I That 'was being a radical, I I Gilb: Were you familiar with Fabian SocialismP 1 C Hagemeyer: Oh, very much, 1 Gilb: WM that sort of like yaw IdeaaO i . .. i Hagemeyer: No, Socialis~nin general, yea. Fabian Socialism, 1 i I perhaps, Socfalism interested me as an idea, a8 i F it wae always called then even, a Utopia, but ii. organfzed socialian did not interest me. k why became an 5tta I lntellec~lanarchist. ;1 C And on a religfoua baala, a Christian anarchzet. t I kuor now vbat it meme, but I didn't how t .. I. then. I was young and grabbed wt anythix~g. ?. I Gilb: I remember passing through a stage when I thought - anaxohism was the iGeal state.,. I i %gemeyer: To me it ia yet, but I could explain it differently I P from the way.At ie explained by all of the people r L I know, from Thopotkln up and dome , : Gilb: You say ~ouwere religious. Did you attend .aerviceaf Hagemeyer: I hd to go to Scnday School, but I gave it Upe i t ]Cutheran. But I was so ugalnst anything that and ws orgasizsd dogmtized...as a youngster, !t
waa t of course, I baptlsed a Iuthersn and went I.. %boughSunday School aird ny nother took me to !
church oc~asi~nall~,but; I ~eaentedL.t; so 'muoh 1.
I thnt I cohllg hiad my msrnbarahfp cuaeelled, -. . . - ...... '- ...- , ...... 'c.:-r:: -:.... - .>--- .. '.,?\., ,. ;. .:Fr . :--;:.?:; ;;.. ..- ., ,h.i .'. - .* .: ..:',A,. - .. L.*,*.-- ,'-- i 8 i L. [ another reaaon for them to think that I was i1. no good. To have the nerve to repudiate a i: church in which I was auppoaed to belong. I [: couldn~t'belong becauie I was also interested 1.
in mysticism, the ' ~hheoephilosophy and things 1: ,like that, or Catholicism. I couldn't. Gilh: In all this time, were you thinking of mming
. . . to the United Statesf Bagemeyer: No, not at all.
. Gilb: Ilr"hat fiually made yau decide to ccnneP . . Hagemeyer: So much happened beween, when I didn't know, ... -. Prhen f was going through my businesa career. I
got to quite a.aomfortbable position. I thhk . . : ,, 1.:.B ... i: ft aas my. i8ealimn that made me go into t: horticulture. ..: k g . Gilb : In HolbndP . . Hagarnayerr In Holland. I studlad. I left my buafness. 1.:. After being in the army, I still went back to C - my brokerage, I had to go into the osmy, more i F t; or less compulsory, not for all, but %or every 1. t sthar'boy, You had to &raw a lot; my older 1 ' I broth? drew a luoky number and ha ma free, ao i I had to go in. 1.
bF' Gila t Vere you mksappy in the aa~lyY ei 99geicyes: Oh, I don't how. I bd a nioe tbm. I.don't I, i t~~ Xt9e ave~bean .sari bppy, I Lzard a very 1 good kke. . .
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i. 3 t I': .. . . . i * I Gilb : You're euch an individualist, Wouldn't the it regimented life bother you? \5 1; Hagemeyer: Frightf'ul, yes, and I wasn't very well, but 1. i. t always had a great deal of luck, In the first
iI place, I had to study to beaarae an offioer and
then I played an instrument and instead of . ' having to oarry my knapsaok and uaU for miles 5-k and miles, I played on a flute and aarched, all t. k by mysslf, I would play with the drummer who i I marched in front, A muaiasll talent has always k oorte out in me, I ehould have been a malofan ia the first place, not 8 photograpbm, E: Qilb: Had you studied music? Ekgemeyer: No, never5 I only had a love for it. I hailnlt studied bec~uaethere was no opportunity, Gilb t I notice you have a piano. You mat play it, &gemeyer: No, I don't play it, I always bid friends who played the piano. I don't play the piano because I 'would never be good enough at it, I'm good en- with the clarinet, but even then, I'm 1 not as good as sons people thbk I am, I i Oilb : \%an you got 3ut cf the -!my, xbaf did you do? i i Hagma,yert I rent on with my carear. I got kok ia the I ! t [ ; Then certain things happened to me, I
I beciame, never rabid, but a rational, intellectual F politician...not politician, idealist, you 6 might sag, but politics entered into it, I Gilb : Eot in any organized sense. Hagame yer : oh no. i:: . . dad then of course, being a'vegetarlan, I felt that I had to ohaage my career, I uaa r 1. very, very unhappy c~tldI knew a doctor who 1. hew sanebody in the country, in the beaut- I I oaouztq OX Eollmd, I went away and rent to t L. hortfariltural eoUege 'for about tw yeara. I ; i- i have u dfploaaa of that, i Wing that tima, I planned ri$h my ti brothers to go to California, about rohich rs t !. bad read a grsat deal of what I call now !-
Wbt pbses of tha bally-hoo attracted you moat? It was beautiful and apparently sverything was
80 euay, and of course, it was the Weat and not \urcfvllized, tho- tMa ms.lo~ago, 1908 and I :- .. . :. . . _ . ..
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10 TH6 UNI!TED STATES AND C-ORNW, : l9ll; WORK IN HORTICULm -. ! i I Hageneyer: I kept studybg horticulture, mostly pomology, ti
!' the art of fruit growing. One of my brotihers I went to America, two years or so before I did, I f L and I sent him all the lecture8 and things I k learm6d in college on hortiaulture, However, I1 [ . . in apite of hisbeing on a fama ln the East.,., t;: F- . !&m mother brother went bef ore..I C- . . . . =jS w- ' . ,..: .;,.I .:.;--g >,Z>.$ ;-:::.&&:&%->- - k ,.. -... : I mnt. Gilb: You were saving you money all this the to go0 1. .' i. 3agemeyer: Ft5ghte f.
DXd RE -they work : Gilb: you expect to do bad, go to on. C1; : b' a *?arm or go to work Ln h&f;icullture? f f.--, .
&gemeyer: We fatended to start wh#t re oalled naively r !'5. F' ,ernit p1ana;ation of 6xarf fruit trees, latense i. ualtivatioa, in Califo~nia. !That was our goal, r. !. Of oourae, I worked for a little while in [, the %at in nurseries.
Qilb: Ym came! over In 1911. Fadn ?Id you come to i CaLiforaiaP . -
but I did all the planning, the hitiatlve, I. - kind of seeing how it should be done; and it i worked out that way very well. He always a86 I t very efficient, very practical, dlffesent A.on I i myself, He spoke already pit8 good Euglid?~, i but I opas shy and afraid to speak English, j So he was working at the Hayea ~ancband I' i I sent out there too. (Hmah owned by Ed, ad FLi 3.0- EZsr~e8.I ~ilbr YOU went out to menvale, I- Eagemeyer: Yea, Bow my other brother 4ad myself eat to : CdUoraia together in 1911. and we ?mat to t i ISdaaMs, In the Smta Chra valley, t 1 Qilb:
[. pu expeoted it to? i Bagemeyer: Oaly professionally, in fruit gcow%ng, I nrs ..-.g. eL dlailludoned. The -3 they did it bere, i htchelcy, hd I still teU the _people I bow iI !
that, %hey dontt how how to pox P;raea and ahat 5 to do to them. Theg'pu$ a tree tapaua em, Pmes, of course they're good. No wonder. I What climate, what soil. Virgin soil, That i.F is nothing to rave over, You don't do anything 1
. . really yourself. If it were something you were iI doing, then you might be proud, but that ia nature, that's the earth, thatfa California, Aa 1t an bmerioan, you don't have reaeon to be proud 1 i of the Hiagara Falls; that was thsre before you i B: - came, What have you done, I&?. ~oye80" kE- ffilb: How did he take this from a ranah hand? f i Bagemeyer: I was then a photographsr. I was a weat of t. honor, as a Snn fianoiaco -tist. i ffllb: On, you said thi8 later tbn. I F E. Oh, as a ranch hand you could never get near Hagemepr: E t XF. &pa except la hfrs church. 'PPlat3s wbre E
f I aent to every Sunday, not because I liked hla C religion, Mot at all. I wanted to learn the &lglish language.
Gilb: I noties from your press clippings that that waa i a RZUb UeChuroh, Fmat Had of churoh ma
Eagemeyer: Wtta a new thought ohuroh, really, Kind !: L of 8 rgsticnl Ehereonim,... i i L GI13t itqe &d thst the o~mrof a pruae ranch would I be interes%ed in that kind of zfeligion. ; i i i k .- ......
I Hagemeyer: They were not just owners of a pme ranch, ! i bad 5 They a large estate. They were vew r wealthy, One was a senator, maybe both. The I Hayea people were very well known in the Santa 1 Clara They valley. Exceptional people. were !1 I the old, old school, the old, old gentlemen. t They bad an estate; oh, I don't know how many 1 workers were on there. I was ranch boy for a large kitchen. That alone made me ill. Too I big. I' didn't like the size of thingam t Wlb: Did you feel eqloited? 6 Hagemeyer 8 Bo, I don't tbiak I felt exploited, I felt that they didn't use my ability. I tih5nk 1 i felt always, evas~rahere, irr the &at too in hortioulture, I9elt tht beriaana were da~pid. L There cornea a European who ha8 studied..,I i 5 knew what 1 was doing, like myEuropeans, the I-i. 1 French, the Scotemen, who how p&nt life. But 1 they just ignored that, until they found out In !- I way C erne peauliar tbat I could do oertah thing8 f
that nobody Ln the whole nwsery in the East p o~ulddo, paitfng a certain plant, rI i I m8aratood English but I hardly talked it,
I I was sensitive about the way L spoke. ,
1 EQy did pu learn the Ba.~isabah? i - - I I was not-saCiafisd. Ira the first place, I F: i I for a few intellectuals in San Joae, where I i used to go. I don't want to mention mh0 Or what they were. Gilb: Why not4 Hagemeyer: They were a group of anarohlsta. I. 1911 and 1912. Gilb : Were they connected with the 1.W.W. movementt
Hagemeyer: I suppose some of the msrnbera would be. I woultlntt know, but at least they ware alive, according to me at that partic~lartm. .'Pha~ mi@t be very dull to me am, the ver7 same people. I also went there bdauae I ranted to know how moh they knew abouk anarchlam and haw thy spoke. Some of them were very, very advanced Zn their kna~ledgeabout philosophical
Gilb : Were many of them fore* born or wre they native Americana2
Hagemeyer: No, no, ue had a teaoher, I forget his name, an American who waa the top, haricm masohiat. One of Us books ms written fa the early daya.
1% not mak;ing a pint of bebg a par3 of it. I -tsd to find out. Itfa bit @verbsting c~x~ioai?tgof me. If I start scrmsthtcg, Wld up
sonekhbg, I would also destroy iLr.if I see tbt it gsks too cczi?lex adargaaieed, too tigqt and crystallized, I destroy It like in Camel. You like your life to be continually moving. Flowing. Externally, yes, it should be, but essentially something is livbg there, Of course, that. is very likely where my mysticism canes in, the soul was unsatwied, or my mind, wbioh is a part of it, There are two different kinde of mlnda, in the f bat p3a ee. It wasn't tine atrenuousneas of'the work at the ranah that bothered youO Hot ant-elg because I alw~yabad a snap,, They gave me a snap fn the-&st, cpfiefe I had to do prornating--easy, tes~de~fulavld interesting to m. Out here I hd to hop beer, wasdarfil, and do erne pruning of mgtrees because the form, ::a n?glIa;?ma3, finally realized that f hew more +bout it thaa he did. In those days Americans took great advantage of foreigners, exploited them.
They still do, Yea, but I &nft notice it so much. There is really mare anli;;fit;emect,more d¯sc-g.
%ti is thscka to &he wions, efch I 63 also
%%inat La pr3.noiple. 1 em for md agahst a.'Zh83- -a a good md ZIBQ~ESP~~mil, :. :. : .,
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j America la today in the world, dangerous for 1,r America, i i ! I shouldn'treally want that recorded, : 5 Gilb : No, I think it reflects a legitbate point of 1 view , I am really a patriot, The grorth of a country anywhere is what counts to me. I am like Stevenson, &hi Stevenson. Fa~f'ul.
Qilb: Than you left the hapa ranch and w811t back to the Bast Coast?
Haganeyer: I was irugaged on the ccllap~ain gPle boksical garden. ,, kigter I left &ha =oh I ma through dtfr
ranchtng, I wanted ::a do 3-w ao as to
with some interesting people, mith the studenta,
-S 6aru8j PU the mf~f~sityof Calif oraia 2 yes; I had baan back to Awop ba the meant-,
when the botanical gzcd.?n sas dorm blou ahere 4. . "1 all the.new 'buildings esre now. P had charge ; 61 t p, 3 t. ,. ,. .? i tj of th3 p~opagitinghouces a& 3.zs-;;Rlcted We 1., 7.. ,a stddsnts ha tc p?c:&%f e.
; , ; ' Q13b: t:.+b:+- Ci& =Jakdi.:se ym.2 3~h.f [. 1 . ? :I .I Eagt^ii:~.epe-: I.asaer a$k~efiai; gsi;c3 :c;> rc:~2~2~. I wz-~:t~& i.?;i r;I 93 T t~)3% :. .i . ... .- .,. . *, *.-,i?.r3$' C 3.irr--.W1-(*. ~::uh.% :* .-. . ZQ~:? &.$y!,?~:a&,, .' ! I went South, I'm sure. I was engaged in. i sub-tropical and tropical'horticulture in I Altadena for a long the. Southern California. F I I pioneered Ln the avocado culture. I went t through date I that &ole stage, and also growing t culture in tiha Imperial Valley. I raa there;
in faat, I b~cfchage of setting out date forma. Gllb: I thougbt tbtea didn't become lmportmt until Utep the &welopnent cf BoUder haand the
irrf gaL&g ap%em. 1.b Exgenepr: Well, +t&ere~s no wigation in the Sahara desert I i f 2 or itl 13gyj?te I dantt thhk that dam projeot C aras s*CYed urban I was in the desert planting i dale i-, Eiose date fcirms are there now. i i They were -ortea froaa North Africa !. the sums nf %be man for whom I worked. The I I Popenoga, very fsunous. They were explorer8 of i i South America, I had cWgs of that particular ; i: gasden In 2XYi%adena =here all of the plrunta from i the were sent c' ~orersfrum all over the world b L for me to experbent with. I bad a mmveloua !
2au gmx?i'ueta, ~'VOCR~OSand i?atee, alnys
PA&0~323 I left wikh tho idea i;o of botany, Gilb : Literally an explorer? Hagemeyer: Yes, literally an explorer. In China, South America, africa, Tibet, anywhere. I knew one aan, a Dutchman, who naa very well, knorm; he E,k 1. waa an assistant of the great botanist in i. Bmsterdam, Hugo De Vrias, the great world figure I in botany. My friend, Frmk Meyer, nho aaa also 1. C a qoet, an iritelle~tual,cultured...not just :: L doing sr job, but he loved.it, It ms a i devotion, a prieethood, That was alwaya my
idea of mything you do. it. men you no lonqer feel tbt ray, you leave ltf
Yea, and go on. L i I :. . So I went to Washington, D.C., then, sent by I.E the Popenoes, where I met everyone in the 1. k-. horticultural department. k I What raa to be your function? Researoh? t ! Research. But I would hatre to study and be I there for awhile. Get acquainted with the top t r~anin the departnent, I oan't think of his 1i 118Ullb F i' Eh~tI worked my way all the the, I had to t t I eat and Live and I lived in a very b6autiful l- t ~ nsctlon of Washington. I worked in sane I
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i greenhouses, some private estate in Virginia, i taking care and growing gardenias. Making i ! money and waiting for an opaning for me to go 1 t to explore. t Hagemeyer: As I told you before, I've never been strong and at that time I got very, very ill, pneumonia. I oouldn't stand the climate. And I was still not quite eatisfied. There was always something else brewing inaide of me, aich ma reall3 the arts. I dim* t know anybody there exoept the people in the deparbent. I didn't know the
people where I raa employed. -. GIiLb: Did the war have any repsrausaiona on your mind9 &gemeyer: Yes. That was in 1914. I went to Baahirigton about 1915 or 1916 and tben I got very ill and i. spent most of my time la the Library of Congress, i looking at ploturea and books. I i I Qilb: And yaz never did become- an explorer? I Hagemeyer: No, no. I was sick. I was suppoaed not to go r 1 on with it. I really went bayond my physical I. ! capaoity. I was driving myself with mbition. But I was told to give that up and go baok to California . Tfaat frightened me. 21 <::
!I . . ! CWGE TO PHOTOGRAPH!!, 1917; ALFm STIELI!JZ r! . . 1 :. f. t Hagemeyer : The first thing I did was to go to New Pork k f' and meet the people I had gotten acquafnted with 1 ; by read4ng books and seeing art. That was primarily ; Stieglitz, because I was interested and I did photography as an amateur, t Gilb : You said that this feeling for the arts had been b
brewing in you...... -......
I- . Hagemeyer: ..- Oh'. . always, ,.. -. r.--b&,..- 2, .C. -.:* - . Gilb : And you had been following photograph.? . Hagemeyer: Not seriously. . Gilb : Just casually? I: F- Hagemeyer: Well, I did serious things, but not to be a
t' t' e:: photographer, as an amateur. I did it before k. L: I left for America, when I was very young, ! C Gilb : And you were an amateur of the arts also? b Hagemeyer: sight. That is, I was an amateur of photography, sC I but I was pretty well initiated in the arts:
music, literature, the plastic arts, paint-.. i 5 Gilb: How did Stieglitz come to your attention? t e Bagerne yer : Throcgh the Library of Congress, through his i camera work. All those people like S'teichen and f( the rest of them. I dontt how if Steichen uas ;: I in Paris or where. V . . . . Anpay, I want to "291." the 'la~ugplhce
where Stlaglitz lived, or had hjls stucLka, Of . - ! 1 r course, I was very fortunate because he was a'- 1 I i difficult man to get along wrth and never let F i' anyone in, but we clicked right away. I sat Dt for hours with him, We talked, t And he practically, by way of specking, t made me follow photography. I had already gone 1- overboerd for it, 1: Gilb: Just from that one contact? Hagenie ye r : Yes, that one contact. I very likel~wanted some 1.. kind of a lift and he encouraged me. He was i..1, much older than I was, Re encouraged me very bI Z much, I had always had that feeling that I i never could be a pianist or a msfcian or a f. I- !. painter because I was already too old, I was t, ;~- not old, but that is a peculiar feeling, I t[. suppose, of a European, at least some Europeans of that particular time. I I met Marin, Glalkowitz, Dove snd all the rest of those people at his studio, all painters. Gilb: Georgia O'Keefe? Hageme yer : No, Georgia OIKeefe wasnl t there' +&.en; he met her years after. I was around New York for a.~hile, seeing i : I things, and then I went back to California to i 1 st& photography. Gilb : Sy this t.L-9 you had made vp yow &nd? . - I ! Hagemeyer: Yes, I was going to go into photography, i Gilb: thinking about going into photography, did t 'Cn t you have a plan in mind as to how you were [ I i going to become a photographer? i F Eagemeyer: No, but only the very best art. Only art. i Gilb : You didn't want to commercialize? Hagemeyer: No, I never have, I have commercialized, if you want to really pinpoint it. I do sell, it But I must be behind my work, not the dollar, I i* I must be behin6 it and care for it, And I k 4 - , did, I I met a great maoy outstanung photographers L- ' f tkrough Stieglitz, Re told me uho to see, like
AM i?ri-~n, an old timer here in Eerkeley, t. ;. . Imogene Cunningha, people like that, and some
k, people in San Frmcisco, People I would run : into anyiiay, I have a nose for that kind of r
thing, I didn't have to be introduced, Well, I of course, I always needed introduction to , < do big men and pea2le in photogra?hy; I don't
3 just go up like an Exe,xIner photographer and
.say, "Eey, you sit, I" g07LIL3 to -,shot of you,"
Silb: Did you expect to be a ?ortriit:st &err you . . , .- . .. s Cartad? ...... I r Hagemeyer :. No, I didn1.t expect to be enything. ?3xccpt Ft that I was Mediately with a portrait photog- i rapher because-that was a way of making a !6 living. I did a great many things in the
! early days here, when I knew a little bit t about photography, which were mostly t i- industrial. Some landscapes, but mostly industrial and very, very radical, very modern. Ii I was then known as the radical of photography. I One of the beginners of shooting up and shooting iL, down'and the most crazy angles, they appealed 1. k to me. Gilb: And taking pictures of things that people i considered lot lovely in themselves.
Hagemeyer: . Not lovely in thsmselves. I took pictures of i i - garbage cans. Soon I had exhibits in mope [. and here and they couldn't figure out that I 1. t. saw beauty in steam shovels or something like that.
Gilb: Who was your teacher originally? 1 i Hagemeysr: I never had a teacher. I worked for a man [: B here.in Berkeley as an apprentice. His name was KcCullagh, a commercisl portrait photographer. Es was vary, very good, an old timer, and he 'mew his game, and I was just simply in there
to lemthe game; Gilb : I know Stieglitz studied in Germany, studied- chemistry and mechanics. You-hadnone of that scientific background? 1r Hagemeyer: Not photographically, no, but I had chemistry f . i t in school, particularly in the horticulture - college. .
Gilb t Were you very interested in the mechanicsf Hagerneyer: No, never very much. C Gilb: Your camera was just a device. C - Hagerneyer: Yes, it was just a medium, like your pen or ,- . S' E your speech. I have a box uith a lens, or no r lens, and a sensitive plate and that's all there is to it. The rest that is bportant'is the person who is holding that camera or holding $he brush, for that matter. My whole judgment I. I of everything is based on that,.uhether it's t Y music or... F Gilb: You didn't devote much time then to trying to
I.> or trying find out what kinds of paper to use, [ to buy new cameras or setting up fancy darkrooms? Hagemeyer: No. When I was working for this man as an i apprentice, I wasn't doing overmuch. Here and 1 there I used my camera; there was plenty of 1' ~ time: He was a very nice man but of the old 26 i - f i I aohool and he never hew that I was different F t from what he thou.&ht I was. He didn't how me. I I If he had known me, very likely he would have E thrown me out. Ha was very nice, and I was @1. C very nice too. I didntt speak my mind. I i just wanted to learn photography. Politics i I or philosophy had nothing to do with it; I cI- wanted to get something out of it. 1 E I never was paid. I washed dishes in the 1; . meantime and did some landscaping in the morning or the evening so as to pay for mg room, here in Berkeley. I never had it easy; 1. I never had money, but I got by and I always I had a lot of books. I had a wonderful time. br I knew friends. Like when I was in Washington, CI" h' I had other kinds of friends. I dressed up. 1. Being at that the particularly European, I wore a coat and always carried a cane., Not 1i ! any more because people would laugh. I never f- &' f- wore spats;' I was a dandy at one time, i- !. according to the French style, as a youngster,. 1'. i- but I thought spats were silly. i-, When I left this place in Berkeley, I I beat my way down to Itos Angeles on a freighter. 1. I hired myself out a3 a cook, which of course I wagntt. I was almost mur-dered, really, i k because the cooks were drunk and fighting each r[ other end they made me do the cooking and I 1- k didn't know the first thing about it, except k k
I. hew. how to chop parsley and break an'egg. 1 I I was aL~ostmurdered by the cooks. They had i lmives and they were drunk enough so they could F.e smell that I would just beat it when I got into 1 Los Angeies, which of course I did. But I didn't have a very easy time. I had a little iF- bit of an old suitcase in which I must have Fe had something. I think I just managed to jump off the boat and take mg suitcase along. 1 -1 - I had some frisnds in Pasadena and ' f Los Angeles because I had lived there. i AN-mCHISM AND THE WAR YEARS; WITH EDWAFLD IJESTCN 111 LOS ANGELES i t i And in Los Angeles I met, through other outstanding 1. f photographers, Edward Weston, in 1917 or so, L I remember that Stieglitz gave me an autogreghed t k k book in 1916 and soon after that, 1917 or 1918, i I met Edward Weston, and I've known him ever k 5 since, I also clicked with him right away, F F L-- Gilb: He was very well known by then, ?- k Hagemeyer: Not so very well known as he is now, He was known k i. locally as a very outstanding portrait photog- 1 rapher, I never had done much portraiture, but E he had, and I liked his work very much, I liked his setting, B. f . . He liked ne because I had somethin&, else,
I was one.of tiose mopean tDagots, 8- travelers, I brought things to him, Re already had a family and I had never had a family. I was fie6 and I could move around. .It was during the war
years, the'war we were in. Therets where the trouble came in for me, really, beaause I was
Everyone was hot against the Germas md I wasn't, not becmse I'm pro-Gzrmsn but I catt
sea that ~;?ynation as a whota can be -srons, I
rz~fonallzeitst, gcu see.
. . +.
-.. ,.? 29 ; I I
Gilb: When you sar you got into trouble es a pacifist, f i what do you mean? ! tr . Hagemeyer: The government followed me up. ray wondered I-A I who I was, They .must have notled, or heard, !' t,- or were told-..The government wza after certain j: people and I knew those people. Tney were - f' - 1.W-W. msm3ers, 'I,never was, bat. they were . . k.:
poets and I like poets; I don't care what kind f.6- . k - of religion they have, And I had to gzt out LI! of my boarding house many times, That is, I 1 [ had to move to another place. ! There w~snothing wrong with = except 1 k- - that I had different ideas. .i Gilb: Of course there had been a lot ol'violence, k. like the bombbg of the LOS Angeles Times in 1912,- Eagemeyer: That never interested me. I was absolutely against violence. I lmeu h Goldman very uell, A wonderful man. She knew all ebut drama, in 1
which I-was also very interested, I i I knew msny of the ~e0ple&e uas with. i ; Bill Hapood, Ee was, of C~WSQ; a so-called 1 1- "b~rnb-tk-\~\wing"&?.n%rchbt* I nq condean it, 1. but they uw there and the? ham a >ig?lt. They !. i, .
. .. - . .:...... , ..>- :, ..: .,- >.,. ,;.. ,- .,:-...&. t. u '? -l ... -- 30 i . , . . . , . . . . I can always .b'e' che'cked; they were very micg in 1. the minority. They very likely thought I was 1 ! a siss< some of those anarchists, be.cause I 1:. was very mystical and religious about it, like . . 1). a Tolitoi. ' 3ut I associated with them because i t..: they had scmething to say, And somehow I 1 feel that it is good, like Gide writes, to P, disturb, to arouse. Not to make you feel nice and purring, I.;, ,. .. . . - Gilb: Like Socrates. I;.. < Hagerneyer: Of course, like Socrates, the whole business, - and then take your poison, , . . . f:, . 'Of course I didn't warnt to go to jail. :. .. . Many of my friends went to jail who werenlt . . ...
as radical as I was; they were just pacifists.. . ''
- . Although I was against the war, I had ' . 1:.
enough sense not to call myself a pacifist, 1: bI. Actually I didn't, believe completely in pacifism, I believe there mus't be a constaat i:
i1.' stirring, That's why as soon as those people f
began to orgaaize, I fell out, That has been r1. t in a way my weakness. It is much better to I. belong to something, you feel more comfortable 1: '. h aria secure, C ; k Gilb: . - 'Sometimes you are more effective than as an . .. i I. ' 1.
' . . individual, .. . . 1. i . I:
i..,I. f . , t ! ! { : 1' . ? -< 6. I > . . ,.. .9 It is a weakness because you are out of i (I everything; you are alone. It is hard to ! stand to be so in a minority that you are alone. That is why I say it would be easier and more comfortable if I could have joined the Y.M.C.A., take my dip every morning and see the boys and talk Ged knows what. But I could never do it--I would start a revolution. Gilb: Were you trying to earn a living by photography at this tixef -
Hageme yer : . No, not with Edward Weston. I lived wlth him right away. He asked me to come and live with !. him and I did same cleaning of the studio, r-1, housekeeping at the house, and they fed me. Ir At the same time I just played around and I; worked some with him in the studio, mostly making trouble. We had very much in common and we did a i great deal of going out on the road, beating j. our way up to San Francisco, Gilb : Hitch hiking? Hagemeyer: In thos9,days. I hadn't even heard of Camel then. i At one stage of the game, during the war, . -. I i' Weston asked me as a friend to leave his house, I C He said, "I have a family," He didn't want to 1: be involved, for fear they might pick me up., We all quoted Woodrow Wilson and I can still I quote him,. It was all right for the President to say those things, but not us. I could
quote Lincoln to you now, without mentioning r b his nme, and that would be subversive. 1- 1 I play KTth people quite often, I say a t certain thing that Jefferson said and they say, I'k "YOU mean you're a Communist? You want to i i-- overthrow the government?" I say, "Yes," - r. - Gilb: Jefferson said you must have a revolution eve- I- twenty years. .- Right, If you donct like it, it must be e Hagemeyer: ii t changed, That is the flexibility of a democracy, I , L t But some people, the Puritans, who think they !. have it all,., La i k Gilb : When the war.was over, did that make a change , in your pattern of living? Were you no longer 1 bothered by this persecution? After 1918, I Ii [ was wondering at what point you started to make I I portraits. 1 Hagemeyer: NO, no, I was still with Ed~ardWeston, doing i . i i' my own landscapes. I let him do the portraits. i ! i i, . ! I was a little bit shy about it. I photogra3hed him and a few people, but I never had a studio of my own. But when I was out of F money I had to get a job in a photographic studio, which I got right away because I had been working with Edward Weston, I hardly ever did any work except talk, talk ariti-war. I never worked. We had a wonderful time and
I played music. He never was overbusy. Pb Gilb: You probably earned your keep1 Hagemeyer; Oh, I'm sure I earned my-keep, Then I worked for a man in Los Angeles
and 1 did some specialized work, which I had .. really learned by myself. Specialized work like czrbon printing, and I did most of the enlarging work. Portraits. I can put a certain quality into a print that is very personal. They say that now. When I was tZ ill recently, I got a good photographer to do
my printing and my fans started telling me not to do it because he could never from my own negative make a print like I do. Gilb: -And you could take somebody else's negative and make a better print than the other person
' could? Hagemeyer: I imagine so, if I could select the negative, There are certain negatives that I know I can't make a good print of. If you think of hsel Ada, he is more of a scientist than .I anything else. Ee is so much perfection that 1. i that kind of print I wouldn't even be overmuch 'i L interksted in, because he is more like a machine t.L- that is so mechanical that he is not human 1- anymore. You can always tell a print that I make, I don't know how to put that, but it hasn't the perfection like a machine has. It [1 has the same imperfection that a human being ; L. 1:'. has. In other words, Adams has become too . I.. t' much michine-like and that I don't like, It - !: must be pergooallzed, 1. L ' Gilb: You say that you.first aterted photog~aphing i ' industrial subjects and then you made the tratisition gradually to a concsntration upon people , Hagemeyer: Right,
Gilb: That suggest3 a change in philosophy. I t Hagerneyer: kayn I started to do industrial things and landscapes, I ahast started some kind of trend, a certain kind of point of view. 'X'hen t others keg-= to Co it end it was easisr in ,
t&at l*e, 'oscaue it was not mobiie. %e I ! : . i! I human being is mobile. He has something to say all the time; you never how what and when,
And Edward Weston did it, but he was h little
bit too much of an arranger for me. Those i1 F- were all very beautiful but all arranged, like i Whistler, Very clever, very good. Thatts why he was supposed to be so good, because he remlnded people of Whistler, 1
Yes, he was verg slick and beautiful, But I 1i . P did landscapes then. Afterwards, when I began tI' to do portraits, he did nothing else but stills \:F- .. ; - and landscapes, some of them crackerjacks, He hardly does a portrait, 1 f mat do you mean, crackerjacks? His landsca~es,Ms work is marvelous. His I k~ portraits are not so vital. They lack that I+ something. (Ee knows me as a portrait man.) They lack something personal. It's an-
lrnpersonal approach, while ng a?proach is personal, see. Even now my approach is very personal as I'm talking to you. Are you satisfied with the interview? it. t !. Yes, I'm satisfied, but it's cevar going to seem ; to you like it's really xhat ~QUwould have said [ if you could really have said what you wanted to. i Hagemeyer: Yes, because I still have that feeling of 1 being recorded and perhaps Holding back. Not 1 i very much as long, as you talk about photography ! and art, photographers md artists. But the 1 thing we ought 'to come to sometime is my bumming around and finding ny nzche. . . 37 ; b
!' i. ! SAN FRANCISCO AM) CLWL, THE 1920'3 t I' i Gilb : I wanted to ask you how you happened to come F:
up to San Francisco again. . Why didntt you i ' ; . '-. ..- . . stay in Los Angeles? . .. . . 1 Hagemeyer: Oh, that's an easy one to answer. I don't like 1. . . the South. I dontt like Los Angiiles, first of i;: all, and then I dontt like the entire South. I::.:. It is too hot for me, unpleasant. Too nice, too f. 1.1 much sunshine. Maybe not now because there's might 1.: smog. Tiat have been interesting to me. Ian a San Franciscan, really, I feel as C ., 1;. though I was born in San Francisco. Itts. ; I-: [. near the water, .Ittscosmopolitan like I: . - Amsterdam., Itts provincial, in a sense, but [.
k- , always tremendously cosmopolitan, [:, :. . . Today I don't like San Franciszo, but 1;. then, yes. There were not too many people I. then; they were still building it up, They 1, i. were closely bitted. 5 i I am inconsistent now, you see. They told I-. pL . me that before. But I say with my favorite' c i: American poet, Walt Whitman, well then, I will ,
be inconsistent, It is the most natural thing, 1: -. I to be illogical. t'- . . . -.-, . ., ,.A. .:. i F . . 1...... t. . . t-, : 1 ! .--1 '. 1 1. I. !...... - : .. . -- r.
Gilb : Men did you finally make up your mind to open i a studio of your own? What made you begin to I- feel that kind of confidence? b Ragemeyer: It took me a long time to have confidence, particularly in this new medium. 'Istarted a little studio in San Frmcisco, I did so many things. It took me 'along time to have confidence, Ild llke to repeat, because 1 couldn~tsee myself opening a studio, For that I felt I had to know more than I did. So I did other things. I worked in a bookshop selling books for a long time, at the same 1 F the making little pictures, I was making C money. It takes money to start a stuaio. I k;
worked for many things to make money so I could 1 s buy materiels and keep on photographing. I I- was also a judge for many photographic exhibitions, 1 F- Gilb : Did you like the close-knit group to which b I you be longed? I t Hagemeyer: Yes, I felt it was not too big. It was like i in Paris, where go11 could get into a group with i 4 ~ariety,diversity, but yet small, Otherwise Er I get confused and too much all over the place. i Like it is today, there are too many artists. t I f . r I t. . . . . They. are .swarmin@:all over the place like bees, Fi ' . . but they are not really artists. 1 Gilb: Were your friends around the time of the first i world war artists? i . .. -... , , Hagemeyer: Artists, yes. -, ,. ,,?-.-<, .- ' . Gilb: Were you ccrnnected with the Art ~s$&iati&'l 1 F Hagemeyer : Oh no, I was a member of the San ~ranci$&o '. I...... k,.. i' Museum and the DeYoung Museum, just 'a 'members so" - - " . b:. that I could take in the different privileges,. . k:. f . k.. Gilb: Who were your friends among the artists? 1.;1; Hagemeyer: Piazzoni, Stackpole,,, . . p= .; , Gilb: ? . . Gertrude Albright k:;l'.
Hagemeyer: No , i t.. , I' John Winkler, the etcher. %re were so darned f many, in the commercial arts, in the fine arts 1'i and also the photographers, of course. Like i I. i Dorothea Lenge. She was married .to Kayllerd Dixon i. f: whom I knew very well. And I knewthe lady of i;b . the City of Paris, Beatrice Ryan, who started
some kind of "Beaux ~rts," I was interested in i :. the arts and I' always gave them the impression ! that I knew all about it, I didn't set out to give them. the i~pression,,,
Gilb : But you had already exhibited, hacb't you? iI Ragemeyer: Letts see, I vas in San Francisco after I left 1 - - Edward Weston, I don't remember. i ! Gilb : But when you came up here you were in t2.15~ world ti of the artists? ! i Hagemeyer: Only. Musicians, artists... i F Gilb: Gradually you decided to go to Carmel, Bu did f t you hear of Carmel? I i Hagemeyer: I wish I hsd that more itemlzed in my dd, but
it is so mixed up and so from day to &y living,
marvelous and wonderful, but hard.. .I to t. F. 1- Carmel to have a &ow. I had a show here in r 5 Oakland before tht, mybe thirty-five gears k. ago, that was even mentioned in the Os.klz& k 1 Tribune. i'F i Yes, I knew everybody. Through samzone I P. met a Dutch woman coming Java, tke f Tram Dntch !> East Indies in those days, and sfme was going to I- live in Camel and have a little tea rom~ f c She was quite an artist tse, cultured, Ih k those days, a cultured Europe&? like q '5rather, t
who was a wealthy broker, knew nxch sb-k masic and the arts and was interested in lite&vze, i
The businessmen =e cdtursd over there, not i I here. Women how more ebout art here. [ grinders here; they must brlng hcne tbhcon, L t Aid they love it; +Aey love tke success az m~ir I .
,. . . j
They can't talk. That's why I sit and talk to .- !.I . b . I Sam H~me about anything, Europe, books--a l marvelous person. 1 Gilb: What was the name of this woman from Jsva? Hagemeyer: Tillie Pollack. She had a tea room there. I had already done something, in portraiture, some children but mostly landscapes. And sha asked me to give her a show there, so I did. I stayed with someone, I don't know who, They
were all very nice and hospitable In Carmel in those days. I had a show and I also had to give a lecture on it, which of course was a. total flop because I cannot lecture. I maybe
stood there for, it seems five or ten hours, before .I could utter a word. I had asked ir Tillie Polfack beforehand, 'For heaven's sake, 1 if I can't get anything out, start asking -- questions." So she did. She felt I was perspiring snd go- nuts. I couldntt get t.. anything out. I didn't how where to start. It t Gilb : Were all the great people of Carmel there? I Hagemeyer: They were all there, all tke greats. 1 Gilb: This was your debut, C Fagemeyer : She began to ssk ine questior.~.a~d then I got
to ~ollLig. It'waa very easy. I rubbed it into -
I I
I ; all the psinters that they should take a look at some of the photographers' work. Then, it looked so much like Holland. Not 1 t ! that I am so patriotic, but Holland is a very i beautiful place, pmticularly where I used to live when I left my business. Many artists live there, musicians, philosophers. And Cmel and the dunes and the ocean and the pine t~ees, Dutch. So I 'said, I think this will be a good place for me. There was nobody there yet, four or five hundred people, So I looked around for a place to buy and twenty-five or thirty years later it turned out to be the best place in Carmel. I didn't realize, It was away out in the woods.
I had a little cottage built and I slept there, ! cL I cooked there, I photographed there, I developed , 1 and finished. I mostly photographed the wealthy 1. discriminating people fcom the East. I say hE , ' discriminatbg p~posely,because I always found them more discriminating. C The Eastern people? t Yes, particularly when they come from the New
England states. I did most of them. They were
always gathering In Camel in the summer and I hew them all. i- I I 1i Gilb: And you had no trouble getting people to come to be photographed? Hagemeyer: None at all. I still have some of those pictures. Gilb: Carrnel had gained fame through literary people like George Sterling. Did you know them? Hagemeyer: Oh yes. I knew George Sterling very well, but only In San Francisco, in cafes, Cafe life, you know. And also in Camel, I photographed him. And Lincoln Steffens, I photographed him. And Robinson ~effers--I knew him before...he was always a poet, a born poet. He was always sitting around dining with friends of his where I was always present. Gilb: Re has a reputation now of hating people and wanting to be isolated. Hagemeyer: Ah, I always have a quarrel. I don't think he hates people. Do I hate people because I'm most of the time alone? 1.t is because you can't find the right people. And hets always brooding; he is a poet. Ha is a so-called isoletionist, but he isntt, because he knows more than the people in the world, He is .much more observant. They all tell me that he hates people and everything, that he is angry. No. Anyway, I never found him that way, but he is a very strange person, maybe like some of the oXd Greeks. Very timid, very shy. He
4 could hardly look at anyone.
Gilb: Jeffers is very different from Sterling. Ragemepr: Oh, very different . The ravbg Sterling 'did at my studio--walking, shouting about things1 Dropping me notes about what I was doing. Certain photography was very, very new. Even Ansel Adams was raving about us. Now we rave about him. Ansel Adams was nobody. He was just fooling around with Bender. I knew Sender very well. Don't ask me about him; I don't want it on the record. It is more than sarcasm with me. Gilb : I talked to Spencer Macky about Bender, and Macky told the tale that Bender got other people's money and gave it... Hagemeyer: I knew Spencer Mace very well. Bender was a sponger, and he always got the credit. Re got my pictures, You give them to him and he gives you a tie and then he donates them to Mills College or to a museum, but by his name. That's Bender .
. . I .-- . i 1 Or in the nens of Ann 3reiner. i Yes, but Bender even beyond Bremer. He was the 1 most f~iqhtfulegoist and the most frightful t egotist. He %ad nothi-ng, except money. Re didn't 1 even knori very zich about art, but he picked on F1 b I; the people who were talked about and far known, ! Re had the wo~ksof many of them. k Gilb : Sara Bard Field has told me that he used to come It. to her house and bring f Ffty people to lunch.
He used his connections.., Oh, very generous, With other people's hospitality?
With other peo2lets work too. He was awful, I .. ! e1. did actually comiercially make a picture of him and he tried even then. ..my prices were not 1 t then what they are now because of the value of 1. t:. money....but he tried to jew Ine down the. An t.r artist, and a r;an with money. Oh yes, I should : 1- have done it for nothing! We don't have ta live! L . j: I don't like to say it because it sounds rather ti nasty, 5ut it is not sarcasm. i Were thers aq true patrons of the arts in the i I i area? I how Colonel Wood bought paintings. r I Yes, but I don't think really true patrons, arid 1 if there were, I certainly don't 'know them. i I There were a lot of people, especially among t the Jews, who bought things, I had a treiuendous j i clientele among the wealthy Jews in the early r I days , 1 But they werenlt exactly patrons, At least they patronized, they appreciated the arts and they bought, You could be a patron, but if you think of a patron as just a collector,, , But I wouldn't call Bender even a collecbr, He was something like a collector, but he just grabbed, begged things, That's not collecting.
He would take things away from;the artist, and the artist, like Bufano mid the rest of them, apparently thought it would be good for Bender to own some of our things. When I did Einstein, then he wanted to have the portraits. Instead of how much. ia it,,,oh, donrt talk Bender to me. I really despise a person like that,
I wanted to ask-you sometung &bout your life In Camel, You said you knew Sterling and Zeffers and Lincoin Steffens, Van Wyzk Brooks lived there. Be lived there for a cou9le of years while he xas miking a book.
I knew hix vezy xell, Really a groxp. We C&RB L. : - ..- -. . __ __--- . . . .- ...... ,
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. . 47 ' :
i . . , . . . .. - - . . ... -.. . - ' . . : . t I
together every Saturday at a restaurant. We ri sat around a table eating and talking at the 1 same the, the artists and the writers, and 1 ..- t scientists. !I 1. Yes, it was a very esoteric sort of an I:. affair. I This has been called the "jazz age." Was it a "jazz agew in Carmel? 1s . Hagemeyer: I dm1 t know what that is, k L I think it is associated with lots of drinking, 1 iconoclasm, a move away from conventional morality. t Hagemeye r : They were very advanced in their ideas, unmoral. 1 I Hot immoral, Prom my point of view, I think it is immoral to be moral.
And they thought so too? Hagemeyer: Yes, they were really the intelligentsia, 1 It must have been a very exciting place to live. t Sagernayer: Then, yes, That is loore or less gone now. 1 i There was a place, the Blackman's. He came 1 i from St, Louis and had a lot of mcney, had a I C very bfg ham and once a week we all gathered i there. Soretha_s we had recitals or something, i i.3 music, or a pwm was be:nz read or we had the i j Italien Pxd of tkater that you do spontsneoasly, I 48 i
i I cent t think or the rime now. You are only i i told that you are supposed to be so-and-so. Commedia dell' arte. Marvelous. All those I people who lived there then, in their private F 1. homes. It was very exciting, very stimulating. 1 Even then it didn't quite suit me because I e5 left that place many times. I just went to San Francisco. F Macky mentioned that Armin Hansen was down 1 there, in the Stevenson house, wasn't it? No, what I remenber of Armin Hansen...No, Price F and Gus Gay, but they were more of that nodern rk bunch, Lie younger ones; they lived at the f Stevenson house. Iqr. Amin Hansen was a well- - i 6 known and established painter and made quite a 1- bit of money and had a very nice home. Of f;' course Hansenls etchings had a great deal to do with it, and others. P But it is very hard for me to remember - i certain names. I lived there so long and I . I hew so many people there. And again, so many people knew me. Those few people who were living, there a~ddoing things end stirriog things up...Even today I am surprised when I i. go .into a restauraat ~r someplace and someone r ! comes up to me and says "~ren'tyou Mr. ~a~emeyer?'" i I "Yes, why?" "Well, you were in Camael. Are you / still living in Camel?" I'i No, no, but that's ha9pened so very oiten, I C 1 - Did you how Effie Fortune dokn there? 1% Oh yes, very well, A lovely person, b I'd like to bow something ebout her, I've i L - heard that she was a "character," ... k t Yes, a character, but 1 wish there were more [ characters like she, She was very outspoken, k. very direct, an enfan* terrible, straight from 1 the shoulder, like an artist, kThat kind of things did she do? Kind of decorative, murals, And portraits, - r:r' I don't think I could quite rave about her work, ! You liked her as a personality, Yes, I liked her, I remember her better than 1I- I would remember her work. But I do that with t so many people who were there, Were the people who were in Carmel more interesting because of their persanalities or because of their work? Does their work 1 entitle them to be remesibered, or what they I were? k i Their personalities were linked with their work, F, i
; Tney were known for doing a certain kind of work. But most of them were not like Jeffers; you never saw him around a place when there was a group. He was always isolated. Right. He was only in a close group of four or five, of which I was almost every time a member. . . You belonged to both types. Oh, very much. Gemini. I .liked most of the people as persons, not so much because of their work.,,Like the short story writer, Jimmie Hopper. And the Bruton girls I knew very well. What did you think of Jimmie Hopper? I never could get close to him, I daresay, I don't think very much of his writing and I don't like him personally, but it is because some people are allei-gic to me. I don1 t knot on what basis. He felt quite that he was somebody and I don't like anybody ovemnuch when they begin to present themselves as being somebody that you have to accept without giving you a chance to find out for yourself. I was told so many times when Z wzs
photographing that some people 33ed my work
very much but they didn't wan5 %a be photogra2hed by me because thq zlvays felt
when I looked at then,. .A doc- szid to me once, "What do you do with tkse blue eyes, You see all the way through m,' I said, "Yes, I do." I don't, but rn "&t you
mention it, a person came in ~ZIB otber day;
he's a Dutchman, He said sowEMng and I said, "I think I can guess wke -gousre doing," And I guessed his occupation emctly, By the way he talked and his mannerisms,
Soroe people, when they see that and.
realize that gout re really geft;nP tbeir number, like Jimmie Hopper, mZ@& not like it because they already have an eatzblished self - estim~tion. They think I mi&% see too much,
I've been k.0~as being atea critical . critic. Gilb: I understand thst you not only abited your om work but that you he:d a Ifele gelleq down in Carnlgl ad exhibited ~LPamrk of other people. and =ere Bqenejer: Oh, I had musicals . e~ibi%Zcins. almost et-eGy month. So you were 'an encourager of the arts in : : your own way. 1,' 6 I wasthen the "it," I started galleries, activities, People from the outside could come . . i. in and see othe? people's work, local or 1f
visiiing artists, I gicked them up and I had ,- . t exhibitions, I opened my studio for it in the i e& afternoon, and in the morning I did most of { I -i my work, I always had some sittings. 3- - I ' 5.. . - . his was when I had my large studio, 5 *.
because I built that only later. A very mar- 5'L 3. . . velous studio, wonderful garden. :C . , Did you contlntle garde~ingor had you lost i..:' . Y. . interest by that time? Not by that time, Fow I have, I don't think i I've lost interest, but the actual doing is
beyond me. Oh, I would never lose interest in ?' C flowers, even wilted, To me it means fruition, ;
the final beautiful stage of surrender. I've I thought of it maiiy times, No, xy interest in gardening is not less, just as much. I couldn't help it because it is part of me, but I don't do it, I don't do
I gardenicg, but ir~Camel I bad a very beauti~^ul gereen, all enclosd. I I Gilb: Of all these artists you met in Carmel, which t I do you think were really .great? ! Hageme yer : I don't think any. Great, No. Price, but he IL . b was never great then, He went back to Seattle i or Portland, He was really "it," There's nobody I could really think of here or in Carmel who would compare with the creative, devoted works of art, That is, even Price's work would almost seem primitive and childish by comparison. Even then when he did those horses, I could have had plenty of them, those sketches, 1 I I I don't diminish or aondemn or cancel out i. Arrnin Hansen; that would be pretty arrogant and !- pedant, Although someone like Henri Malraux, t .- E the French critic, wouldn't think of looking at him, I don't think, But very good. t In other words, I make a distinction i between a painter and an artist, and a photographer 1 and an artist. Like Ansel Adams is primarily a 1 F photographer, even mora so than Edward Weston, i
I am i I am not. I not a photographer's photographer. ! i Of those painters, Price stood out. He i: will live. He wcs tkte artist, for me, This is whet I would like to say. The
world ca~very well do without them ad many i others I coald. msnticn, but r.ot without i da Vinci and Tintoretto or Michelengelo or Rembrendt -and El Greco. You might say, do you have to go so far back, but it isn't going so far back. KO, Gilb: Do you think these people might have been greater artists if they had not lived so
gregarious a life, if they had isolated themselves and worked harder? Hageme ye r : You answer your own question, Why should Jeffers..,he will live as a poet. Gilb: The two people you mention, Jsffers and Price,
broke away. -. Bageme yer : I know others. Van Wyck Brooks just keeps on writing; he's a literary man. He.wasnlt only from Camel. C'reativity is just something innate in a person, You see, to segregate or isolate yocrself really, in the last analysis, doesn't require isolation, because you are really doing something with yourself. To integrate, to find out what you really .are, not to be selfish, but to do what you must do, from the inside. The great ones a.11 did it. We can do very wel.1 without the others, I They were very nice to how and it's ugry nice that they had a good time doing it, like people had in the time of Kozart; they had a good time..
Gilb: In other words, what you're saying. is that if
they had had it in them...... Hagemeyer: To me there is no question about it, nothing can hold you back; in spite of everything. Gilb: In spite of your environment. Hagemeyer: Regardless. Right. Now, it takes guts perhaps, .it takes something. You canit help but know the true artist. They are the ones like'Van Gogh.
/ Never sold a thing, always rebelling, always a frightful struggle. Always writing and painting all the time. Always thinking of Rembrandt, of 'his perfection. But there he is, always, in a way,. secluded. Because of his isolating himself, he went "obf," perhapst Maybe a lot of people would call Robinson Jeffers "off" because he seems to hate humanity. I can read you a poem right now by Robinson Jeffers that is just the opposite of whzt they say of him. He goes deeper, he is steeped in the Greek legends and philosophies. He is almost a reincarnation of the Greeks, if there is such a thing, which I doubt.
Gilb: Did you find during your years at Carmel that your oun style or your outlook toward your own
work was chsnging? .- Hagemeyer: Carme1 had nothing to do with it, that. I know. . . Gilb: You were just growing of your own accord. - Hagemeyer : Yes, Gilb: Were you growing in any discernible direction?' Bageneyer: The discernible direction is that I began to
find myself more and more, let myself be. I know it when I can be myself in my portraits, or in anything. I'm not trying to do anything. I just cantt help it. I donft do much. That is the difference between me and a man like Edward Weston or Ansel Adams; they are producing all the time like they are grinding peanuts.
I have nothing against it if they feel that urge and have that necessity. I know a painter who does four oils, finished, in one afternoon. It would take me a week to get one finished
product. And Itn only a photographer, or so they say, They don't say it, but they think it just the same, that there is no thought back of >hotography. 57 ;
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f A SSORT STAY IN PASADmA AIID EOLLDJOOD, 1929 I f. r F. t F Why did you leave Camel in 19291 1:' $ yer: I didn't leave in 1929. I went to Hollywood k;i; and Pasadena, yes, but I was always at Camel E .. F. '. too. t. I.;.- E s- Oh, you kept your studio at Camnel. C.' . g Hagemeyer: Edward Weston used my studio.for some time, & Li; f.: . He had come up hsre, r g.. .:. Hagemeyer: Oh yes, he was in Mexico and he tried it in - g: . . the South. He saw me again in San Francisco
CP. '. and he found out I had a studio in Sm Francisco k.'. . . g.. also. In the winter in San Francisco and 5. - c: . ti . .. Carmel in the sumner, There were people in [. :.. , . I-.-- Carmel. All I had to. do was to show up in I;.. : Carmel ad photograph people, mostly people g ... e: - from outside of Camel, hardly anybody from 1.: around there. i- b.' ( I left Carmel about a thousand times, 6 sometimes for two or three years. But I ii. !. actually left Carmel, sold my place, in 1947,. i . . i In 1929 I left my San Francisco stuZio also r- . . . and went to Pasadena end fIollywood. ; i.- Why did you go dc+m there? r. . . t Hagemeyer: I was told that I could pick up some noney - iI. Y .- 7 . . . . !j there. A lot of wealtny pscple who wouldn't . . :. . .: i I come to Sen Fr=cisco or Carmel--I always hew i ! many wealthy people and 'they were very keen 1 about my work--I think they liked me as a I person. Like the actor John Carradine said, 1 t "The way you do it, it doesn't seem like !1 r!1 anything. " 1:. But I see so rapidly, so intuitively, that 1 immediately I'm set. I see composition-- t-[ lighting is almost Instinctive, a part of me. 1 I never have to think of it, except to think of C L. the person, of what I'm dam. & b Gilb: Did the lure of the movies heve anything to do i , L with your going to Hollgvood? h Hagemeyer : No, no. The movie people are cheapskates; they h C e are spongers. They have a lot of money, but i & they are photographed, so why should they pay t F - me. They were keen about my k-ork; they were 1. once trying to make ne the still photographer r,. !' for one of the movie outli ts, which fcr a t i:
moment appealed to me, bct I lmew inside that t.I
I could never do that. I would just be hocked I srollnd end told what to do.
Gilb : It certai~lywmld be contzary to your style. i
? Zagemeyer: Yes, so meny pecple, Eke ,mg style a-zd %List I'm 1
doing at exhibitions, but +&ey ere not i . . You went to Hollywood in search of clients I but not movie people clients. iI ; No, I happened to really be lured to Pasadena i' ' ? by wealthy people, but it was just exactly in i i 1929 when the market collapsed, so I co,llapsed I with it. I couldn't make it in Pasadena and I hate that place, so smug, so Puritanical. I i lived there before uhen I was a horticulturist, I knew-many people from Hollyr~ood, painters, k &:. actors; I thought I'd go to Hollywood. I 8- ; didntt do very much there either. During the & -: F:C. ,; depression I actually couldntt make it so I . , i,::. 1 had to move back to Cmel, where I immediately : f , - 1. . made it, . . I:: - e.:' ;. .... I even had to ask Edward- Weston to find . k;.: L another place because naturally I was just going bankrupt. He was having a good time there. 14y studio with practically no rent, ,k t People came to you in Carmel, even during the E'; depression. - t,. Oh, yes. I had msde quite a reputation. Xot t ! in Carmel, but about. They rrA@t cone from i Los h~elesto Carml to be photogrephed. I But they didntt come to you in Los Angeles. Isn't that odd.
No, it isnft so odd, At tht tin? Carmel was . . the plzce to go to for vacation or a honeymoon. Camel is thet kind of place. &d Pebble Beach L i. end Del Eonte. Hagemeyer had a studio and I . i$. was tine only one. For a long time I was tne i i only photographer. k- B Until Weston came. Weston never did very much in portraiture, not even In my own studio. He did some, but he did lansscapes and they sold. Naturally he did some portraits, . . . .
..-.I . ....-... "";.
. . i j TIIE i930ts AND t40t~ . . !. I-
' . . I remember that in 1932 in Carmel a group, f64,
was fomed around Weston. You didntt belong f: P ,i;.. to that? : c Hagemeyer: No, no. ' !. . . e r ' Why not? .; .
Hagemeyer: Why f64? Why not f128, or f nil? Open lens? f.P- : I. I thought it was silly. They were all the same, [.-I.. k always doing the same thing. It was all a la i:.; F: e. Stisglitz, no, he was in New York. It was all :.;: t . - a la Ansel Adams and Edward W6st0n. As much I; admiration as I have for Edward Weston, and he k-E -. f.. is an old, old friend of mine and I have , 1,.p; C respect for his work, a great deal, and for .. . b'; -. Ansel Adams, why should I be a copy, a second p.. I.. or third or fifth rate Edward Westan? They . 1:;. . i know that. I just go my own way. I could . i. L- F- never join anything like that. I. I They may have invited me, but it didn't i'F.
appeal to me; it was too one-sided. f 64. !. j They were just photographer youngsters, little ;.' t. squirts. 1 i+ b But Dorothea Lange belonged? . . 1' Hagemeyer: Yes, and Edw'krd ?Jeston too, but Ihleston wasn't ; I< whole hearted about it either., That's probably 1.
w3at he got from me. In that sense:, he- was .a_uite.. I I . :. I
id :.'. . I5. q$3tL C . i ... <* . h
62 !
I i 1 a 62t hfluenced by me. In that sense, when F It cams to theorizing, I'm perhaps a bit of ! i a &j-jz~personality. I speak my mind; it tI k ia't ~3solute,b-~t it is mine. t' tEz2t your relationship to Ansel Adams? t
Sagemeyer: Vem UtZle, hardly any relationship. i:F I Bad bard that he was a proteg6 of yours. i- - F; Hagemeyer: No, never was. I never had a pro-t;eg6. NO, no. 1 1 Bl;re eertain photographers very much. I i1: haye a young man here in Berkeley; he's not a ti ' f pro-&, I am in favor of his work. But I 5 L ifm't H3r.e any of the f 64 peoplels work. , I Do%o#&ea Lange? Yes, that's all right for her. kC I 5.0nmtwant to get personal. I donlt even F4 15.b be1Adams at all. He is an exhibitionist. 1- < 4 EeEs fkZ@tfully gushy. Edward Weston is I me-t, Of course, he used to be my friend. i I ksel Adams, never personally. His tmrk 1 tx?w~_L%%o me. It is beautiful. I'm talking i - =bat & as a person. His work is beautiful. ir k DBd take en interest in the documentary ! j pho+Czmphy?
t Hagemeyer: KO- UeU, I have done some documentary work. ; I I I f q work is documentary or super-documantary. , I 1 m.fre a document of you. ,: I .. i FJf !-r :-1 ? I r : , You started out your .early life with strong i L- i convictions, social convictions. I think that I i. r: people who do documentary 2hotographs often have b.t a sense of socia1:irzjustice and use their photographs in that context. L Propaganda? No, thet doesnt t interest me. E ! I may do a street scene, but not for propaganda L or political reasons, Just as a human being. Did you gradually abandon your anarchism? tve transcended it, not abandoned it. Never. still belisve in azarchy and absolutism. Christian philosophy, or Chinese or Hindu, it's all the same thing and Itminterested in all of those. But those things are all so frightfully personal, like art is also. You belonged to anarchist groups when you first came to California. In the 1930's did you belong to any political groups? No. I followed the dffferent political parties, not only here but everywhere else. I would read anarchistic tracts, for lnstazlce. You get ple2ty of anarchy if you read Dostoevsky. NO, I have finally four12 someone, tbe grsat teaching, that hcfuc!ed...an extension, a more li5era1, hman extension of intellectual ... great public events affect you in any wag? Hagemeger: Of course; they affect anyone. ~ilb: I might be more specific, You apparently did well economically speaking, during the depression? '&en you got back to Carmel, did you have trouble making a living there? Hageme yer : It was in 1930, '31, No, it was nuch easier for me bacause I was some kind of a fixture there and had been for so many years, from 1918 or 1322 on, I never was very flush, but I was popular, I photographed people from the East meinly, when they came to Camel, or even from San Francisco or Los Angeles, I was always doing enough and I was making a very good living, Gilb: The poverty of the '30's spawned a lot of social ideas, There were a lot of Communists during that period and other ideas, Hagemeyer: Do you mean the second World Wer? Gilb: And before that. Did you go along with any of those ideas, or were you just isolated as a person? KO, I uas very much involved dwing the first World War and slso the seccnd, very involved, wing the Seccad blorld War nsw were you involved? 1 i ! ..4 - - _-<-- ; l.B , - ...... :; : .- . . . . &,h' ' ., 6'. ....-.,- ,? . . : . , : .. - -rtw-w-&. ... ' ..-...... '. , ?-'. . . f1. ' I t' Hagemeyer: Well, I was more interested in the war and . . ! # i justified it because of the Fasciqt-Nazi , i: I f. domination in the world, everywhere. In fact, . p: . . 6.. I I wanted to fight. Of course, I couldn't . C b... because of my age. I was against the first i World War; I was a pacifist because I thought p. ,' it was foolish. The govehnent thought I' was C :. a pro-German. I was not. Neither was I pro-British or pro-American. I was anti-war. - ' k 1 But in the second World War you were definitely t. 8: f anti-German, anti-Axis? fi: :. Hagemeyer: Anti-Axis, anti-Fascist, oh, very much., And I 1.: would say to any young man, "Now, this time . ..*- [; /. it is worthwhike fighting. You are really . fighting to make the world free, safe for 1.:. democracy." We Amerl cans are pretty strong F.. in the use of slogans; when we have a slogan I.: t we think we have already done it. That is P very bad. I:. But idealogically, naturelly, I was E' k. E pro-democracy. I F Pro -f ree dom. i. Hageneger: Pro-freedom, yes, for all people. Not only 1f for US. 1 C Were you still living in Carmel during the . . ;.. .I . . . . - .. i .. -. , Second World. Wa.r? .. . . - 1, '. . . . F- ...... i . . i 1 ij . , '1 , -: I . .! Yes. . i You couldnft fight. Did you try to do anything I else for the war? ' Yes, I don't even like to mention It, but I . j photographed a greas many soldiers and t -1 purposely cut my price in half beczuse otherwise I-- f they might not have been photograpbd. I I- advertised it practically. So that was my i- contribution. It was about all I could do. I couldn't go and be a paratrooper or angthing; L I wasn't young enou*. That was only several 1 years ago. How was life in Camel during the war years? 1k- Well, hectic on account of the wamr hcause ;-I., Fort Ord was so near. I didn't 33k.e it, but I I was already getting ready then to move away. E Carmel was being cheapened by ccnnercial E L enterprises. People were coning Zm, greedy for 1 1 real estate and so forth, and dl those little 1. - !. F shoppes featuring a town which was at one time I r very lovely and beautiful with fear ~eople. 'r Featuring, commercializing, butch-hgit, b ruiming it like they do everywhere, t- k So you moved right after the war, edntt you? Yes, I mcved in 147. Where did you move to? San Francisco. Did you have a stueic there? k;=li, I tranted to have a studio there, which I finally did get. I e;ot a very wonderful place on Telegraph Hill, on top of the hill, but I couldn't make it. There were other 1 difficulties involved, because I wasn't alone, you see* I ABOUT LOVE AND YiR8IAGE t I I I wanted to ask you about your marriages. You ; E said yo; had been married three times, but t . b.:-. never legally. ;-'- I I: Is that what I said? It's not recorded? i i Not yet because I wa~ted-toexpand on it and /:- . . clarify it with you. i: Those things are so personal that I very rarely t ' talk about them and I take them for granted. I 1 F: take a great many things for granted because of 1:. t i. the way I live, the way I think. I try to put 1.' .P ... :: my philosophy into practice and it has worked. P- '...... I have had three L~portantand long I;-. i' . ' F' . relationships, but the last one was the most E ! . 1, important, the most beautTfu1, ad the longest, i i' We were married for 18 or 20 years, She C died only recently. She was a writer, a patrician, a great and marvelous person.. If b 6 you live with a person for five years, it r i becomes a marriage by law, comqon law, but I ! never so-called made It legally. I am really rather naive about such things; , . ! they don't interest Yne. I dont t like to record I that, but if' you have a relationship, you dm't have to havk it ssnctionsd 57 aqbody. I used i to say satirically that you only do that with - pow dog, go for e l5cense. .. - - . . .- .. . - . Those things don't coilre back to ae . . anpore, I was young and in a uay aggressive ,... . . with my idaas, Ideals too, I dirin't believe in "legal" marriage, and I lived that way for many years. Soaetimes it was broken i ' up naturally, just like. thhgs break so many F':...... up. Like at one the, I was through with Beethoven. You didn't want children? L No, because I had enough to do -to take care 1c . kT ;., of myself thet I thought it wasn't fair, t:..:,... !- either to the children or to mgself--and I [ :. may also reverse that, qiself goes first. - 5. k.<. .- *. I wanted to carry on my wark. I -think a :....L:,:;. . < .. g~eatmany artists would do both, but then [.1- *.k- they also take a chance, 1. L F . . I have a friend now who is suffering because he wants everythine. He wants a wife, he wants children, and also he wants to paint, but he can't. He has to have a job and now he is suffering. Ee doesn't like the job. I did pretty well, in a way, and I suffered too because I couldn't always make it. But I did pretty well what I wanted to, and after all, I had that relationship and it was always very inspiring. What made you move to Berkeley eventually? Well, I gave up San Francisco and then I . moved to the Peninsula, Burlingame, and I started a studio to help a young photographer, put him on hi3 feet. It didn't work out. I also was taking care of this woman. I don't know how to put those things because I very rarely talk about them. Forinstance, this woman, my wife.. .XIS. Bagerneyer she was called by the tradesmen but not by her own friends and I never i~troducedhsr as such to 1. my friends. She was herself a_xzite somebody, I 1 a patrician, a xc'iter, beauti~"u1, not beautiful. , . I phgsically bat s beautiful person and she i . . ! always vent by her om rzane. Eer nam3 was Jane Bouse . ...:-; ;.,.., -.>...<.?.-. . ...:...,.: . . . . . . . . ! .. . . . !' I ;-i . .. -Was she an artist? < F I* Hageneyer: In a way. She was very much interested in'the j things I an interested in, nusic, literature, ! poetry. When I met her so many years ago...in ! fact, I met her as I have ~etso many people, F I photographed her and we happened to click. [ h:.. - .' I don't think you can describe how two people k. together. They have something pretty 1. .- get F.. ,: much 3.n common and it 'issimply already .[: , . cemented; it has already happened. It isn't I: . just falling in love, you 'mow. 1; : I When I first cane in, before we started to I-.,-, -, f t- record, I remarked that a lot of your a2proach k. .. .... to life must be very pai- for,youand I 1- !..I. should think it would apply to emotional [. k-:' : relationships too. The institutionalization i' f of emotional relationships provides a kind of . I E... . stability or frame-work so that you don't have 5 f-. to think; it sort of perpetuates your life on L ! a formula. You try to live so intensely and j:. individually, it must be hard. i Hageneyer: Individually, yes. No, it wasn't hard. !.i f Sometimes it is hard, yes'. It isn't hard for !. me. a conventional society, they all hew ! In *. me, and everything.thatI did; I didn't hear /. ! 'I II ...... - . . . - . . .., .. . any criticism, My actions were taken for granted because I was all right. They believed in me, you see. Friends, all kinds of people, they accepted it. They also said many times that I had a great deal'cf courage, 1 ' dared to live, and a great marq of them envied me. I was not promiscuous, you see. There was a marvelous relationship, loyalty. Gilb: But wasn't the end painful? 1- Ragemeyer: Well, there are no happy ends, only in books 1 and motion pictures, k. Well, I could modify that too; there are E and there are not, but generally not. The end of things is always sad and difficult, To cut off anything involves a certain amount of pain but that pain is not for nothing either. If you are aware...that is what I mean 5y living. You grow, you mature. Gilb: As you said you loved the flowers, even when they were wilted. Hagemeyer: Oh yes, because they have completed the whole cycle. Gilb: You still haven't answered the question of why you came to Berkeley? k:t 1 Bagemeyer: Z came to;Eerkeley because I didn't how where I On else to go. a'ccount of circumstances,, I 1i . i I. f i couldn't go. East or to Europe, which I had been want in^ to do. I i Financially, you mean? 1L Not only financially, but this friend of mine r was very ill, had been for a long the. (she I was a veteran of the first World War; she had been a nurse.) So I was more or less inhibited in my movements . i You had to stay because she was ill? Yes. She was in many sanitariums and I didn't care to go alone. She was full of life, sick 1 as she was. She was tremendous. She died about a year and .a half ago in a hospital. t i IN BEPXELEY AGAIN; F,SIENDS 1 . . Why I stayed in Berkeley? Well, I knew a ...... : great ..Ag'of,the faculty members, that is, ! ...... i people. :sf;''the UniversPty,,, scier)tists mostly, L L . - t the arD department, .and I hew that there were t all kinds of activities in Berkeley on the f 1 campus. Music, lectures,.. I You've expressed admiration for people in the f !F ~ast,that you really preferred them, that L' . .. they were more discerning, I should think that would make you want to go back to the East? Yes. Well, I still feel that I would like to for that reason, but I also hesitate doing so, I don't think that I C?J wtthatand the climatical conditions, either the heat or the extreme cold, I have never been very keen a5out it, I lived in Washington, D.C ., for more than a year. The clinete is frightful. That was just before I went into photography. I like California. I was back in Europe a couple of tines. But you didn't*want to stay? There was a time when I wanted to stay. I have been wanting togo again, arid I really feel yet that I' want to be somswkere in L.=c.pe, but I am split. I feel out of It and I feel I: very much in it. t Back to Holland? Paris? i No, no. 'I would just as soon travel through - I Holland. There arethlngs I would like to . -1 see, what they have done with themselves, but i very likely I would prefer to live in Frsnce - hi OF in England. 1; In England? E- Yes, because after all I have lost a great /? deal of my French, my laopages, just neglected i. them.. It might be a bit more difficult now to t pick them up again. One doesn't know. I am I not over-optimistic about it, t. - 1: L And of couznse, I am some~hatrooted here. Not entirely, I p=poselg say somewhat. I am 1:-I not rooted; I am very much uprooted. I don t fit in anMere anpore. L But mostly California, and especially i I Sw Frmcisco is the only place in the United ! I States that I like very much, because of its ! climate and Secause it is romntic adpictwesque. 1- 1 Real cosmopolitan, like 'lieu York ad New i_ Gilb: You described your lire as isolated. Are you occasionally gregarious? Do you go to parties? Hagemeyer : Ch, very much. I just volmtarily isolate myself. Although lately, here in Berkeley, i I: I because I don' t know so very many people I r just sit here and feel veq alone, - !. C Gilb: You are a close friend of Louis Siegriest who lives near here. Hageme yer: A friend, not a close friend. I ~ilb:' You are very different, Hageneyer: Yes, verg different. I see a great deal of him, but he doesnat entirely fill my needs and E., neither do I fill his. I t& I demand more than he would. - E-i Gilb: He is a gregarious type. Rageme yer: Very gregarious. He has laany, many friends, : 5 all kinds, fron the bartender up, Gilb: You are more a patrician, I think, 1 Zagemeyer: No, I'm a snob. i' Gilb: I was putting it nicely, t Eagecleyer: Xo, I would never say I was a patrician. Playbe in my mind. But the gregarious types are also snobs, in 1 sense, I know it because tcey call me "eg8 heas.* They heve a certain mtipathy 5o intellectuality. Even among artists? Even among some of the artists, yes. They !: . feel that some of the artists are too ;i' intellectual. I think it is necessary to. have ideas, not necessary to be intellectual', but ideas make you intellectual. They filter. E through the intellect, that's all. Those things are not easy for me to talk about just I off-hand, very difficult. I have some friends here who stimulate me. I must be stimulated, end I must stimulate. What friends? I am interested in who your I-, 1.' friends are. Not very many. I know Sam Hume very well. Can you characterize him for lbhe record? He is a tremendous person, a scholar in the field of literature and the drama, the stage. Be was with the Univedty of California drama FI department, the faculty, at one ti~ne. For t I some reason he quit; they very likely didn't i E cooperate with him eneugh and he is a tremendous i- ' individual. That is what I like. He hzs a tremendous knowledge and is also quite a 1: traveler. He lived in Europe much of his life. i I. . L; !I You mentioned that you knew a lot of the i i scientists over here. How did you get acquainted I I with them? ! t You know, all that has to happen is thet pu t meet one and then you meet the rest, particularly I in my profession. They come to be photographed? L.1. Yes, I photograph so many, and I got it F primarily through a physicist whose name was Loeb, Professor Loeb. That's the way I met g Einstein and all the others. Gilbert Lewis k C - and so many atom-smasher men. ,-1- You like to photograph scientists? k - f I like to photograph a certain kind of people 1 who are doing something. They don't have to I be scientists. . F Do you have social relations with them? b. Yes, with a great many of them. In the South f / and here. ! You are more an artist then a scientist. , i I am not a scientist at all. r You feel an empathy with them just the same? I have met a great many of them, no~tlyNobel people. But they can be very dull and dry 1 l i. t E and uninformed ebout e greet manr things. i1 Many scientists, just like many musicians, are I - very one-sided. Now, if you know somebody who t is really rounded out, ~horeads sonething else, who goes to theaters, who listens to music...that means everything to me. I like people, but it'is not easy for m , ' to get along. It is very difficult for me to g talk small talk. I want to how what they have to say so as to discuss that for awhile, k something worthwhile, some idea. I don't mean to be solemn, It is not a matter of trying to be serious, but there is so much going on in life, let's talk flowers instead of Calking about automobiles. A lot of people just talk about their cars and their television sets. That doesn't interest me at all. This raises another question. Do you get angry personally at evil or ugly people? Or do you tolerate then too as part of living3 I I don't say that in my life I have been so f I:. tolerant, I wonldnft say that. It would be r- i: . verg nice to say, After ell, it is also being k t recorded. But I can't say that, I am too I critical. - . . . .I i . . _.''.I b. C;/: C? _ . \ I.. , . -7 . . . . . . . i If you love the flowers in their. .decay, 1'. 1: 1: perhaps you ought to love hwenity in all its t aspects. To be consistent. F- Hageneyer: Yes, well, I am intolerant, even about t1 t. - . tolermce sometimes. With Negroes, it is k not a matter of tolerating them all indis- . 6 criminately. To me they are either interesting 1:. or equal,...I don't throw that word "equality" around too much either because there is no 4. 1. ., such thing, and there is, Again, it is a t' paradox. Sure, we are born equal, but we t.; are not equal. We havenJt got equal interests ' 5:1. and likes and dislikes, I em very Fntolerant about certein things 1: that are going on in the world. And also about 1. people and what they say.. t Whet makes you feel particularly intolerant? LI 1 What sorts of things anger you.? Mediocrity? 1 t Hagemeyer: Mediocrity, yes. People who conform, who just ! i fell into a rut. That is a sort of stupidity, r - i mediocrity. 1 Tbt somds very superior. I don't mean . i 1I to sowd superior. It doem't matter whether b c I like a na~tl~tiunjetter thsn a geraniun; 1 1 they 8.11 ha~etheir place; but -T arn: intoler~t: .. .,. .. ..' s-.l -. . . i i . r.2 8 .1 ::j ,- '<- i of exploitaticui, for instance. I dontt tolerate it; I fight, xhatever I can. Talk about it anyway. And I am intolerant of people who patronize me, or anybody else, who are so nice to people just as a design. You would not go along dth class.snobbery? No, on the contrary. And I uould ssy so too. I am frank abcnt it when it is necessary. I wouldntt tolerate it, Soroething I 've noticed, and maybe it's not recent, but at the art museums there has crown up a tremendous soci~llife; previews .d are soci-a1 events. And so may of those people who go to the previews don't even look it the paintings; they alnost don't care. They go there for a drinb- and a social rendezvous, Does this alienate you? It is boring, but at least, wkn you haven't seen cer5ain people, you find them there. Like in Peris, you go to e. certe-Zn cefe end sit on the sidewalk and your frlands pass or they come in -6 have a drink ~itby3uJ not to drink but . . ,Another thing here in America, when you II- go to a place the waiter is watching you all k . 5- the time. As soon as your glass is empty, he takes it away. That doesn't happen in Paris i and other places I have been. You can sit all evening on one cognac, in a sidewalk cafe. i But they go to previews to see one another Er and to be seen, just like some other people go . .. to church or to a club. Everybody is lonely. It Is a matter of degree, but every person is lonely. They are always with themselves and they are alone. With some It is more than with 1; others. Sensitive people are more aware of it. When you are hungry for some contact and you are ;lot aggressive, you hold back, you don't s-ly barge in to anybody. I don't, even to my friends. t It is awful to be hungry and discerning at the seme time so that your hunger is not easily sat9sfied. Yes, tbat of course means lonesoineness. Do you think you would find. a nore congenial 1- en~lronmentin Europe? 1 Yes, but still I would miss Ame~icabecause the= is a certain something here. I think ..- D. H. Lawrence once tried to describe that. i There is something here that they haven't got 5t there and vice versa. But 1.mreally still nuch closer to Europe. Would you find the environment there, in L. general,.more congenial for artists? . . That is not easy to answer. I don't know. It would be for me, and I think for artists. Of F' course, they talk about that a good deal lately, kt. f.. P that artists don't have to go to Paris anymore. I;: I don't think that it is necessary to go to Paris to be a great artist in America, or to become one, but there is a nucleus there. New York is they only real art center in t - America, certainly not San Francisco. Here it 1:. ~. is very provincial, very small scale, very nice. I: But if you have it in you, it isnlt necessaq .I. to be any special place to be a great artist. ._. "P;Y .-*-..:. I i i HOW tLRGE3XYEX VAICES A PORTRAIT i Gilb: Let us talk about your photography for awhile. After you started doing portraits, didn't you gradually stop doiilg everything else? Eagemeyer: Not necessarily, though lately I haven't done very mystills. Very few. I've been trying to do this thing (shows object 1 because it ineans something abstract to me. I can make an abstraction out of it, like a Paul 'Klee, but I'm conscious of that and consequently I hardly touch it. I know in a way what I can do with it. But I'd rather do a living thing. I know that while I photograph people, they change all the time. We converse. I don't always have a camera around, or in front of then. Never, in fact, except %hen I see something. Something happens inside of them.' That's where portraiture comes in. Otherwise they're dead, they're still lifes, and I don't make still lifes, or if I make them, I know that they are still lifes. Then I condemn them.. I tell my customers, if they want them, all right. I get a check; I'm commercial enough. I'm not so pure, oh no, but I admit I'm not pure. I'm impre enough to want my check and L i ...... _L__ _ ... _. . i...... . . . . . ! . L.. if they're stupid enough riot to take the ones b I know are the best...and I how. They always : 1I: .;. wat to be something that they'are not. ,. L Then I say, "You ought to to a \:!,. i I; photographer, but don't come to Ragemeyer. I'm 6 L ~ interested in you but not just in making a b I../::. . photograph of 301.1. If it were 'just a . , photograph, the camera would be doing it, i'. not I." . . 1::;.ki:.1.. It is the identification that counts, with ...... the thing, the subject, the person, the moment. 1 :. .. by . . That is why you can't just wfnd yourself up . ' ; [;.' and say, now I'm going to photograph. I'm 1:: F:,.'.;.; going to paint. It is more than just a hungsr, . k.:.. 1:: ' Wan being hungry for a good steak. It is a drive that is final, and also rare. You can't C:.: I.< 1. : just turn that on and off at the moment. That is perfectly silly, That would be making 1 - 1-1 samething, but not creating some thi'ng. t f : One time a friend cane in. 3e had never' L ;: seeq my work, "Gee, I'd like to have a 1. P portrait of myself. Could'you do it now?" f [: [: No. I said, "No, I have to sit end talk L i with you awhile." I liked him; he was rather ,. 1 :-agood talker; he talks about art and literat-a. > i "So, no, I couldfiJt do mything. I '3 r,ot in . ,. -.. -. !:.C-.-;.* -L..--- *.--,..;; - ...... - :I:; ,- . ''I ! .. . i ' ..: ' . the mood.". Now, if he talked long enough t \~ you might see me go to my camera and do him, t but not right away. F When I have an appointment, yes, but I !s have a very difficult time when I have, an 1,1. appointment, to break in. You laue at me. For many years now, I have walked the floor 1.- here before they came and hoped to God that i.[.: 2' they come on time because I don't want to . ,.f- . C' walk too long. I want to get it over with. , ' 1. Like with you. You are so darned punctual, 1: 1-: you make me feel better, because I was in ,.. . L i. torture. It is torture for me even when I k have to do a portrait, looking forward to it 1- .. '- and -at the same time feeling very much of an p i; know I'm . antagonism. I dontt what goEng to i'- F: do, whether I 'rn fn tune, whether I CPA get in ' i; tune with the person. . . ! I had a very beautiful call this morning, 6 1. som6bodyts son, a BleishI11acke~. First I mads I a mess of it, his fault, GO^ ,mine. Then I . made him over, and he called me up early this morning--nobody calls me aerly pihen they know me--md he trss so happy. . I did a beautiful po=.trsit of &hat boy. I 'S.GH it xyselr. I got him, L-d th3t is L;l?ortaRt. Taat IS ?artraiture, not just making somebody sit. Ikmndered why you have done so many famous -wople? Is this by choice, or by accident? I eoice and accident. Because I meet them,. 1 know them, I get in contact with them. Of course, they heve something to say; they have CC& something, That doesnlt man that I wouldn't do a portrait of someone else. , I've just done a portrait of ny colored housekeeper, i- the most stunn- thing. I did a portrait for I herself, and later on, a portrait for myself. t 1.F Xaturally, she doesn't want to shcw that; -sfis r c?cresn1t like it. She likes it now because she k.I hiinfluenced by me. It is up in ny exhibition . 1 i nov at the GaUend Art Euseum. Not the one I P'. before for her. No, no. Well, areclt you interested in knowing a l- t FS like Abramowitsch, who is a very fine pfenist? AnB a strange ,erson. Aren't you 3ztarested in laowing Robinson Jeffers? i XeXl, so am 1. And incide~tallg,I am also ! s gortrait man. Mhy shouldn't I be interrsted ! I 2~doing their sortraits? i I t I do more '~%emouspecple too. I'd like to 1 do S3zst.o~E!cCsrt3,- too, and not ~aksa I tz:rZcs$ure 5:X:j. 1 cculd So, 185 get him. I donit do it in tbzee or five minutes. I may iI take an hour or two. I sit; I'm now. I don't always use my camera. It is so simple, that is all there is to it. I have something that makes me do it, no particular l'e ason. I can't express myself the way I want to. I I read the Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke and that is almost the way I would wri5e. I E would have written the same kind of letters exectly, only I don't have the language. Hagbe I could have in my own language, but not i -.ore either, because I never use it and that is a conflict too. They all say to me, "Why don't you write?" I say, "I can't write. I can't even write a decent letter." Well, I can, but it's a frightful struggle, because I want to put it just so, because it is being put down. -.. Just like my portraits. I can shoot, shoot, fI shoot, but that is nothing. Pny damned fool can do that. And ~~heaI ara waiting, they ask, *mat are you waitizg for?" I don! t know. i Sonethfzg happens. bd of course xlth a great 1 k z.=y people that I photograph nothins happe~s. \ i 1. Then I do just a blank thing, thire they are. I But the people that I have photogpaphed, 1 i: the scientists, artists, painters, musicians... 1 well, I can talk to them about almost anything. 1 Of course, take Einstein's relativity; I know -1 of that philosophically but not scientifically. Gilb: What kind of man was Einstein? . Hagemeyer: Simple. The humility of that man, always trying to give other scientists the credit! He 1:: said, "We just bufld up' on others' work." We all do that, That's why when you ask me if I was influenceh by so-anr2-so.. .the whole thing . . . - is. I'm building on all the experience of the things I'm attached to and that I am hungry for. Gilb : People and music.. . $... 1,. . -. Hagemeger: Yes, music, literature, philosophy, religion, everything. And that is why it is easy for me to photograph a person. I find out what they E are interested in and then I identify myself with it and I can talk about it. I enjoy that, ! and that is when I have really done it. They i I begin to feel that they are not being photographed, that it is just a visit and I happen to have \ quite unobtrusively a little camera there. It 1 I I not even in front of you, only a little while-- I 3.9 I and it goes so rapidly; just a moment. I i never heve to think of light because that Is L i instinctive and conposition is also instinctive i1: with me. , . I Do all your subjects come to you now, or do t/, - you go out seeking people? No, I never did that in my life, though I ought to do it now. I-. I don't mean comercially, but do you go out seeking subjects forthe pure pleasure of photographing them? Yes, if I meet a person, for instance, a pianist or a scientist...I am not ag;gressive i that way, but if I am introduced, I say, "I - 1; - would like to nake a portrait of yoa." It is, i - of course, complimentary andlthat is my 1 greatest pleasure because then I can do what I want to do, not what the subject wants me to do. .. . I tell my subjects so often, "I don't try to please your wife, your children, your uncle, your grandfather...I have got to be pleased myself."' . . . . r. . -. 2' . . . - -._,:. . . . + -...... ,. ' ...... :. :. , . . . .. -. . . .. -~ .--.-.. -.-.-.-..-* ..... , . . . 1' ,,.~~~FLUE~TCES i.t- Psycholo~yand Philosophy I You say that this process is entirely intuitive. i 'I wondered if you used some ccnscious r philosophy, such as the recent psychological [: things? kr : . Hagemeyer: No. I know of painters who use Zen philosophy. No, I use none at all. I am steeped,' very [:. ... - .. . likely, in certain things. 1.:....: ...... Are you a reader of Freud? i. . . E" , . Hagemeyer: No, more of Jung. I have read a great many *, . - ' \{:I::' of ~ungtsbooks. I am very interested in Jung k: - .... 1:'. because he transcends the physical manifestations.. ,: .. in other words, sex. Freud builds almost [.:. . eveqthing on sex, and of course, you can't 1: deny that; that would be perfectly ridiculous; 1- 1 t but Jung has €;one so much f'mther. You must B even understand the notes end introductions he 1'. t I has written for the great Oriental philosophies, I' 1.I mysticism. He is always very careful to note E !' that being a scientist, he feels sympathetic 1, :f. and feels that there ' is sonething there 'that he . I.. as a scientists doesn't go into.. As William i James has done. ! ... . L. . . , . . . . . I i, $1 1 '. . > i ..':j :..4. -. .--. - - .-...... -.-...... I i I i:i Oh, you are a reader of Zmx?s. too? i. eyer: ' Oh,. very' much. His book on the Variety of t 1.'I - Reli~iousEx7erien~ is 'almost a bible for. I me, because he touches on all the different !. experiences in religlo~. Ee doesn't go I1. overboard; he s a pramtists. k: And he's a beautiful hter also. I;-.; .~ Hagemeyer: A beautiful writer, so simple, so flowing. i:: 1.;: , Those are the things I read. Take Jungls ..- ..., . . notes, like the Secret of tbe Golden Flowers,. P;.1'; ; :. f I. very esoteric, and unless you are more or less 1;;.. ' . E: - initiated, which I haye been through teachers, 1:-.' -. F~..L. it is very difficult to understand. That I.!-.. ., 8. .. F.. '. doesn' t mean to say t2~1z.teven now I understand [::. ,:?. . it, but I somehow get a feeling that I cannot 1...... even express or put ~mn,that is almost 1.; .. i't " unconscious or subconscious, 1.. Do you read novels? f'. 1: : Hagemeyer: Very rarely; almost none, !. . Poetry perhaps? :I ! Hageneyar: I used to mad pocttrgp moz? than I have lately; ! Idiuch nore so when I was young. I Do you read books of Zdeas like the books of the psychclogists? . . Sageneyer: Yes. Philosophy, ideas,.. . . , R bllb: brYiat >biloss~'?,ers?' '-DO you .s+&tkSa-&? ;j . .. t.? . . . . i7 . . r.4 . 8 '+I i .a .! ., ...... : . . Oh, very well, and I like him very much, I can't tell you which or what; certain things don't come back to me, I can tell you books I m reading right now, like the one on my desk on The Consolation of Philosophg by a Greek. Platonic. And he wrote that, as so many of the other philosophers have done, in prison, That was ac.tual prison, but I often feel 1;2 prison too. Well, you are isolated,.. Isolated, yes. I can't find the people to really be very close with. I can. pick the author I like though I dontt know most of them in person, of course. You would probebly be disappointed because what you get is the best of them in their writings, Yes, and also I can take my time and chew on it, I read very slowly, . You seid that you listeced to music for bows and hours and hours. -?. .! . .. .J . . . - ---- > -. .., - .. . _r . . Hagemeyer: Yes, in the evening. Recordings. I listen to i5 I much music. Music is one of my pets. I k- Gilb: Do you have favorite types? 1- I 1 Hagemeyer: Yes, the pre-Bachian, Monteverdi and Palestrina. i 1- Bach of course, very much. Kozart.'..I know them all so well, but to make a choice is very 1 difficult. Nozart I would go miles for, but 1 not all of Kozart. I don't care for Beethovents L. symphonies, excegt his- Ninth, but I like his concertos and his chamber music. He is more of , i. a musici.5.n for me theg, just like Mozart is F entirely so. Mozart is for me almost the i greatest genius among the composers. -Art Gilb: Do you go to the art museums much? I I used to very much, in Europe and also here. F Hageme yer : i Now I am a little bored and also I can't quite i follow the modern trend. I don't how what If' they are talking about. !i 11 ! i Gilb: I remember your nentioning that you liked 1I 1 Rembrandt. t. t I 3 Hageneyer: Of course. Some of those 7aintings of j F Rembrddt's, and Da Vinci. Ar?d Holbsin and !i - Eruegel. , Real,. ;IY . .. . . 1 . . i. 1 - 1. By comparison, ' does modern art look trivial i 1 to you? t. ~a~eme~er*No, I wouldn't like to say that, I just don't [: understznd it, I don't get moved by it, I j have to Inteilectaalize it, to ask what is the architectural composition, how do they do it, tf , . but that is not being moved by it. . . . . Really, to be moved by music is to forget ...... -r.. everything and to identify yourself with the p.. ,. .. . . thing and to be lost, to surrender, but I don't k;::.. . do thet when I listen to' Bartok or Schoenberg or Kilhaud, It means something to me, but I don't like it. It tortures me. I listen all the way through, Not always, many tbes two- \ thirds or half and then I can't stsnd anymore, But I might say the same thing of some of the early things .that Mozart ad, the ditties, but they are always very beautiful because they I are so melodious.' After you hear them a couple F.. c:.. 1;. .. of times you can whistle them; they sing right 1, through your mind all the time. 1 I have the same fesling about art, and ' 1V'. that is why I like the Oriental, the Japanese !.F and Chinese. b You do? . . - - I .- 1- . . 1,. 1 a . I. .8. !.I .i ...... - 04, decidedly. It does something to me. But the modern medium in most of. tb erts, I can't comprehend. I have to figure it out. I have to ask, and I don't becruse it would be an offense, particularly from me, to ask an artist, "What are you trying to say?"' I either get it or I dontt. But I was moved by a friendof mine who just had a show after mine in Oakland. His work was very intense, tremendous. Who is this artist? Leon Golden. He is the one who had the Fulbright Scholarship and now he is in Rome. I made a note to myself. I said, "well, he has his own language and it is a language that I wish that I bad." EXBIBITIMG There is one other topic I umted to ask you about and that was your e*ibitlng. You have 1- exhibited for years and yezrs 2nd years now. rt Have you found that the nruseu~~and galleries i are as open to exhibiting photography as they would be to painting? Yes. No trouble there at all? There has never been any for EB, except the I City of Paris. I how all those people quite kY' well, the directors or curators, but that is just a policy with the City of ~&is. But I I had a couple of shows at Gqs. At the 1 P DeYoung Museum. Oh, so many places all over. And in Europe too? Yes, in Amsterdam and Brussels and Paris. -lad then in the Dutch East Isdies, at that time Batavia. Nothing special. As a worker in the arts i i (YOU mag be a worker in the arts and not be an 1 t. 6. artist) you have to sn0wS A &ow is ; the only L advertising, the only publi~i- to make a 1- living. ( L k I have never had to sit on Market 'Street. 1 i I am almost ready to have to do it now, Itm i not doing anything here. I don't mind that .I1 people know it. I dont t know why. I-. . r I've. had shows here, at Sam Humets and 1; ." k- h in Oakland and other places, but perhaps t . F portraiture is washed,%out,people don't have portraits done anymore. It isnlt a matter that I am more expensive. On the contrary, Of i course, I am specialized. 1. t. But I may have to. In the last couple of i weeks I have been playing with the idea of 1. getting a studio down tom somewhere in Berkeley f " L where people pass, where there is some traffic. i Perhaps have a case ouf or some kind of showing t of my work. I t A great many great people have had that problem. Yes, You don't mean to include me among 1 great people? I think your photography 13 rare. TECHNIQUE Hagemeyer: Well, I have a reputation and the prestige. For me, photography is just like eating, Sonetircs the technique, for me, is more difficult than the taking of a ?ortrait, Gilb: Khat do you mean, technique? Hageme yer: After the taking, the darkroom techmique, Gilb: Have you ever thought of using color? Hagemeyer: No, I don't like color for photography, t1' Gilb : Why not? Hageneyer: It is too imperfect, too corny, too cheap, 1.C I too hard. Some of the reproductions are better than the actual picture, Or the lantern slides. No, I am not interested in 1.E color, I= Gilb : When you say the technique is hard for you, i B 1 what do you mean? !' - ?, - Hagemeyer: I mean it is more trouSlesome for ne. Gilb : You don; t take the sarne joy in the mechanics of it? t Ilageme yer: Hell, yes. You cen't always get the material. E That is so often the case, or the3 chaztge the material. Paper, films, chernlcais. Gilb: You ars not a great experFzenter in the realm of pzper i3nd che~dcalsend s.0 forth? Xo, no. I simplify. Berything is done to the greatest simplicity. I use one certain I paper; naturally, there are a cougle of grades. i he film. I- What film and paper? kt I am one of the few who only usei.orthoc~omatic film, not color sensitive, *ch means that sometimes in portraiture yon have to do a 1 f't; ' little retouching, which I do. I don't F: apologize for it, I can't think of the nmof the paper, a I-' comon paper. Just ordinary enlarging paper, I enlarge because my films are 4" x 5". I perfer to mzke them exactly %be same size as the negative, but of course, people like them larger. I don*t make them lerger than about 6" x 8" or 62' x 84*. I don't like them large. You are conservative in the realm of mechanics? Yes, it is very ircportsnt but not primarily. ! It is what you get on your cegative, what gbu i i Cave actually recorded that is L~portant. Have you found that in, sag the last fifteen years, your style or approach has changed? - . ... .$ 101 ; L . iF i I . . I Hagemeyer: Yes. 1-IF style is continuous, progressive; i E there isn't a change so mch in ~g work as in I; myself. I know 'there is a chanee. I see things rk 1'. differently today than I did even five gears ago. ; i. Are there any words that could describe this 1: change? k C- Hagemeyer: No, I donStt think so. It is very hard to 1: 1: . ' put my finger on. That is the way I work. I 1; use very intuitive means. I am not trying to i;' [.E - do something. that is bangy. I don't give $-. f.. people halos. I find certain characteristics i;.:.f -. t. of them. Just like when I am talking to you, 1. I would do a portrait when I see a certain k..€. t' . expression. It is ' impossible to define, to k. put into words. I put it on mg film. 1. f.:,.- - When people esk ne, "lnrfiich one do you ! : like best?" or "T~%atdid you meen by this?" 1 "hly do you like it?" I say, "You tell me." [ n I heve done it and why should I say any 1 t E- more than I have said." , I The same thing goes for painters. That's i t why I donrt ask them. When I get facetious, t' i' I do. +&en I feel that they are trying to put , ; one over, like Nr, Dali, then I ask, but then : .' they how why I'm asking. .. . ; . . . . i- i- . ! 3 ! .. .. ": ...... [' F if -1...3! c, I . - . .. - . . .. - . . . . t With Dali, Ilm surprfsed thrtt yo;l bothered, Oh no, I have a great deal or respct for Dali. Also contempt, perhaps. But respect too? Oh yes, he is a very great teckdcian, and he is en artist. He is almost a genius, even if he is a clown. Mr. Picasso is very different, but he can also clown. A great many artists are actors, poseurs, How do you like Matisse? I donrt like Hatisse verg much, He is too much of a decorator. He is too sbllow for me. Not his verf, very' early work, but his later ones. Which painters do you like the best? 1 Oh no, that .is too broad a question, I like certain things of Picasso and a lot of it I donrt. In E book of his paintbgs, I can show you the ones I like. Classical, of the Greek. I don't like his late work; I just 1. don't understend what hers dri- at. He . . has tongue in cheek. f Do you think there are any g~eatpainters in the United States today? i1 Yes, there are. I couldn't mec%ion them. I I. had a discussion about that lest ni~htwhen I t1 i . -' 4 " ' -. . :..- .-.l.-...... - . ...-, .< .+ . . -- . '. . L___. . .,.: 4 ...... - . . .- . . . . . , . .. -...... -- . --- '. ..- -.. -.. . . 2. ., . . . , ...... -- . - ,. .,. .. , < . - -.. ,<. >-, . . .;..4 . .-. ------. - . . . 103 . . :. I L yas with a painter. I couldnl t mention' any, i .: but if he mentioned sorrieone, yes, there was 1. i a certain thing that I saw. f I Gilb: You inentioned Price, that you tho~ghtPrice.. ! . . L I was great., i 1. f. Hagemeyer: Yes, yes, C. 6. Price. I just got a catalog 1; . . from somebody. His late work is inner; there L"F is something inside of him, Also, a very I..t; ; .. simple statement, just what Price is. He tr . doesnft try to be someone else or to follow a [ .: fashion or a type or a genre, I:,,. . .. There are many others, They try so hard . . j;:, to be modern and they become incomprehensible F' . to me...I discussed a certain painter, a 1'F. " Frenchman, really a Hollander; I donlt see his f !: work at all. His na-xrie is De Coninck. To me c it is frightful, hideous, an insult to my 1 good taste, if I have any. 1. i Gilb: Did you like the Impressionists? . b: I. b Hagemeyer: ,Yes. You me= Whistler, and so many others. F';: All those schools. I'd like to tell you this, I , . I donlt go by schools. I4hy should I like a ,\ Durer or a Holbein or a Rernbrendt or the i i later ones? There are so my I,can't even I' : think of them. I have no particular favorite, ...... I like.:Korris Graves. .. . . . . Sou do like Morris Graves? Very much. He has something mysterious about him, very mystical, Criental. I how of his philosophy. I would like to know him personally iI because I am sure I would get along with him. But he is also more or less of a recluse, not because he wishes to be but because he is very 1. difficult to contact, I1 F. i:.. Yes, hers another example of the type you C. admire, Transcriber : 1-IB i Typist: a-- . PARTIAL IBDEX .- Admwo Am01 34, 44s 53, 56, 62 A~o~UO001ft- 18 Ebndur, Albert w .. mwama : b7 PARTIAL IKDEX (cont.) Gemini Hoppes, JltrsRlie ...... 50, ...... ::. . .. H-, Sam 41, n k~g*,D~r~tbs. 39m 61 ~ewfs, Ciilbert 78 Tmeb, bod -- I. \r7,:*ur 78 Mace, Spen8er 44 PARTIAL INDEX toant.)