Description
The Johan Hagemeyer Photograph Collection comprises the bulk of what was the photographer's personal archive at the time of
his death in 1962. The collection contains approximately 6,785 photographic prints and negatives, and spans from his earliest
known amateur work of ca. 1908 to his later works of the mid-1950s. Portraiture predominates.
Background
Johan Hagemeyer was born into a working class family in Amsterdam, Holland on Whitsunday, June 1, 1884. Sickly from childhood,
and self-described as the "black sheep" among his 4 siblings, the introspective Johan was very well-read and excelled at writing
and drawing at a young age. Under pressure from his parents to aspire toward a higher social status, Johan left school in
his mid-teens to join an insurance brokerage. Meanwhile, his intellectual curiosity - which ranged from literature and the
arts to science and politics - led him to explore such topics as philosophical anarchism, vegetarianism, and religious mysticism.
He also had a keen interest in botany, and soon abandoned his career in insurance to study horticulture. After compulsory
service in the Dutch army - where he served as a marching flutist - and a brief return to brokerage, he enrolled in a horticultural
college. It was during his studies here that he and his brothers Hendrik and Herman, also aspiring horticulturalists, decided
to emigrate to the United States to pursue their ambitions in California.
Extent
6785 photographs
(approximately 5,790 film negatives, approximately 925 photographic prints, approximately 70 glass negatives (representing
approximately 5,235 unique images)) and 1500 digital objects
: film and glass negatives
Restrictions
Johan Hagemeyer's copyright in this collection has been assigned to the University of California Regents. Only the photographs
created by Johan Hagemeyer in this collection are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (CC-BY 4.0,
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The following attribution is required for all uses of these photographs: ©
The Regents of the University of California, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. This work is made available
under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
Availability
Collection is open for research by appointment only. Photographic prints and negatives are RESTRICTED due to need for special
handling. Requests for use of originals must be approved by the appropriate curator.