A68.103.7

Hagemeyer kept this portrait of himself in his personal collection. The two known prints of it are both signed. The print at the Oakland Museum is dated "1920?" and is titled "Johan Hagemeyer." The one at the Center [for Creative Photography] is titled by Weston, "Jean Christophe." Jean Christophe is a series of ten novels by Romain Rolland that was first published between 1904 and 1912 and met with great popularity. Jean Christophe Kraft was a German musician who traveled in Europe, observing and criticizing moral values and extolling the importance of freedom. Rolland's work was analyzed in 1915 in "Little Review," a magazine that Weston seems to have read. Weston used "Jean Christophe" as a nickname for Hagemeyer and referred to him by that name in at least five letters written in 1919 and 1920. The setting is Weston's studio. The chair was used on several other occasions for portraits. The same cloak and props were also used in two portraits of Spencer Kellogg, a pictorial photographer from Buffalo (Amy Conger, "Edward Weston: Photographs," figure 51/1920).