Werkman, Hendrick Nikolaas

Werkman ’s magazine “The Next Call” , the cover of which he painted in 1926.

Werkman was born in the village of Leens, which is located in the province of Groningen . His father was a veterinarian surgeon who died when Werkman was still in his teens. After that, his mother moved with her family to Groningen . In 1908, Werkman founded a printing house and a publishing house where about 20 employees worked in the best of times. Financial failures forced him to close his enterprises in 1923, after which he began his business anew, opening a small workshop in the attic of a warehouse.

Werkman was a member of an association of artists called De Ploeg (Plow) , for which he printed posters, invitation cards, and catalogs. From 1923 to 1926, he published his own avant-garde magazine with the English name “The Next Call” , which, like other publications of that period, contained various experiments with fonts , printed blocks and other printed materials, which framed in the form of collages . He distributed his magazine, changing its editions to the work of other avant-garde artists and designers abroad, thus staying in the know regarding progressive trends in European art. Werkman maintained contacts with Theo Van Dusburg , Kurt Schwitters , Lazar Lissitzky and Michel Seuphor , the last of whom presented his work at an exhibition in Paris. ^[four]

"Typestract" ("abstract print") by H. N. Werkman, 1923-1929

All these connections were vital for Werkman, since he was engaged in the development of his business and could not leave Groningen. In 1929, he was finally able to visit Cologne and Paris, after which he developed a new method of printing by applying ink directly onto paper with a roller, after which the stamping process begins. Thus, it was possible to achieve unique printing effects on a simple hand press. ^[5] The most complex effects in this way could only be achieved through lengthy processing, which could take a whole day. ^[6] Another of his experimental techniques was the painstaking creation of abstract designs using a typewriter, which he called tiksels . ^[7] After 1929, he also began to write sound poems . ^[eight]

In May 1940, shortly after the German invasion of the Netherlands , Werkman organized an underground publishing house, De Blauwe Schuit ( "Blue Barge" ), where up to forty publications were issued, all of which were designed and illustrated by Werkman. The magazine, among other things, published Hasidic stories from the legend of Baal Shem Tov . On March 13, 1945, Gestapo officers arrested Werkman. He was shot along with nine other prisoners in a forest near the village of Bakkeveen on April 10, three days before the liberation of Groningen. Many of his paintings and prints that were confiscated by the Gestapo were lost as a result of a fire that broke out during city battles. ^[9]

Werkman was buried in the cemetery of Bakkeveen village. Now there is a monument in honor of those ten people who were shot that day. Another monument to Werkman stands in the village where he was born, in Leens. In 1992, the Dutch director Gerrard Ferhage made a one-hour theatrical documentary about the last days of Werkman called “ Ik ga naar Tahiti” (“I am going to Tahiti”) . ^[ten]

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II , museum director Willem Sandberg, who was a typographer by profession, met Werkman and arranged for him a small solo exhibition in Amsterdam in 1939. Immediately after the war, Sandberg arranged another exhibition at the City Museum , where an extensive collection of Werkman's works was collected. Sandberg in one of his works wrote about Werkman as follows: “a man who, with his whole way of life, expressed the desire for freedom, which was reflected in his works, who became an artist at the moment when he was broken by financial difficulties, abandoned by everyone, who had a reputation abnormal - at that moment he created his own world, warm, bright and full of life. " ^[11] Later, a monograph by the American art historian Alston Parvis was devoted to Werkman, where he wrote the following:" after Werkman ’s death, awareness of its significance for modern graphic design has been steadily increasing, and over time, his work has not lost anything in its richness, spirit and optimism. " ^[12]

In 1983, the former warehouse, where Werkman worked, was converted into a printing workshop, and the building was named after him. In the graphics gallery of the city museum there is a hall where the printing equipment, on which Werkman worked, stands. In 1999, the HN Werkman Foundation was created to popularize Werkman's work. A large collection of prints, drawings, paintings and letters of the artist was transferred to the Groningen Museum . ^[13]

One of the major municipal comprehensive schools of the city was named the college of H. N. Verkman . The college preserves its heritage, art classes and other events dedicated to the memory of the artist are organized. ^[14]

•  

  Chassidisiche legenden (1942)

•  

  Chassidisiche legenden (1942)

• Jan Martinet, Werkman's Call , a study devoted to Hendrik Werkman and The Next Call. Utrecht 1978.
• Alston W. Purvis, HNWerkman , Yale University 2004
• K. Schippers, Holland Dada , Amsterdam 1974, chapter on HN Werkman pp. 118-131
• HN Werkman, Typographies and Poems , Whitechapel Art Gallery 1975

• Werkman Archive at the Groningen Museum