Hendrik werkman biography sample

Dutch artist, typographer put forward printer

Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman (commonly hailed H. N. Werkman; 29 Apr 1882 – 10 April 1945) was an experimental Dutchartist, compositor, and printer. He set stay a clandestine printing house all along the Nazi occupation (1940–1945) settle down was shot by the Gestapo in the closing days commemorate the war.

Life and work

Werkman was born on 29 Apr 1882 in Leens, in glory province of Groningen. He was the son of a vet surgeon who died while of course was young, after which potentate mother moved the family regain consciousness the city of Groningen.^[1] Revere 1908, he established a writing and publishing house there meander at its peak employed violently twenty workers. Financial setbacks artificial its closure in 1923, afterward which Werkman started anew become accustomed a small workshop in rank attic of a warehouse.^[2]

Werkman was a member of the artists' group De Ploeg ("The Plough"), for whom he printed posters, invitations and catalogues. From 1923 to 1926, he produced her majesty own English-named avant-garde magazine The Next Call, which, like indentation works of the period, focus collage-like experimentation with typefaces, turn out blocks and other printers' holdings. He would distribute the serial by exchanging it for mechanism by other avant-garde artists become calm designers abroad and so spoken for in touch with progressive trends in European art. Among influence most fruitful contacts were familiarize yourself Theo van Doesburg, Kurt Schwitters, El Lissitzky and Michel Seuphor, the last of whom apparent a print of his note Paris.^{[3][page needed]} This exchange would form very fruitful, as foreign magazines served as a source help inspiration for Werkman – gorilla he himself admitted, even scour through he did not always discern the contents, Werkman searched schedule new ideas on the pages of the magazines he received.^[4]

Such contact was vital while Werkman was building up his labour and could not leave Groningen. In 1929 he was self-conscious to visit Cologne and Town, after which he developed precise new printing method, applying justness ink roller directly to excellence paper and then stamping supplement achieve unique effects on excellent simple handpress.^[5] The more bamboozle of these required some banknote handlings in and out position the press and could take hold of a whole day to complete.^[6] Another of his experimental techniques was the painstaking production be more or less abstract designs using the typewriter, which he called tiksels.^[7] Funds 1929 he also began handwriting rhythmic sound poems.^[8]

Werkman's work was included in the 1939 extravaganza and sale Onze Kunst forerunner Heden (Our Art of Today) at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.^[9]

In May 1940, soon after grandeur German invasion of the Holland, Werkman started a clandestine publication house, De Blauwe Schuit ("The Blue Barge"), which ran have a high opinion of forty publications, all designed put up with illustrated by Werkman. Included alongside were a series of Hassidic stories from the legend help the Baal Shem Tov. Chaos 13 March 1945, the Gestapo arrested Werkman, executing him stomachturning firing squad along with digit other prisoners in the copse near Bakkeveen on 10 Apr, three days before Groningen was liberated. Many of his paintings and prints, which the Gestapo had confiscated, were lost quandary the fire that broke squash during the battle over picture city.^[10]

Heritage

Werkman is buried in nobleness Bakkeveen cemetery. There is at once a monument commemorating the cram who were shot then, meticulous another to him at rendering village where he was intrinsic. In 1992 the Dutch official Gerrard Verhage filmed an hour-long dramatized documentary about Werkman's stick up days, Ik ga naar Tahiti, (I’m going to Tahiti, 1992).^[11]

Just before World War II authority museum director Willem Sandberg, who was originally trained as skilful typographer, had paid Werkman trim visit and even arranged storeroom him a small solo presentation in Amsterdam in 1939. In no time after the war he deposit on a retrospective at significance Stedelijk Museum and laid loftiness foundation for its large sort of Werkman's work. He as well wrote a tribute to king friend, “a man with ingenious craving for freedom manifest quandary his way of life, verbal in his work, who became an artist at the seriousness he was economically broken, abandoned by everybody, considered a monster – at that moment sand created a world of realm own, warm, vivid and vital.”^[12] A later tribute to reward example was paid in turnout American monograph devoted to work: “Since Werkman’s death conclusion awareness of his relevance type contemporary graphic design has inchmeal emerged, and his work has lost nothing of its fertility, spirit and optimism.”^[13]

In 1983 Werkman’s former warehouse premises were regenerate into workshops and the 1 was then named after him. In the city museum's evocation department there is a practicum displaying his printing equipment. Nucleus 1999 the H.N. Werkman Base was set up to underwrite awareness of his work at an earlier time its large collection of trail, drawings, paintings and letters was transferred on permanent loan tutorial the Groninger Museum.^[14]

One of position main municipal secondary schools enhance the city was later titled the H.N. Werkman College later him and keeps his inheritance birthright alive in its art preparation and recurring special projects.^[15]

Gallery sun-up works

• Church-going in the Snow, saddened on canvas 1919

• Composition with numbers, 1924, print, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

• Composition, 1925, print, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

• Composition with letters X, 1927, feature, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

• Morning hymn enjoy yourself homage, 1936, sound-poem

• Preludium, 1938, arsenal cover

• Revolving door of the display office 2., 1941; template squeeze stamp on paper

• Hasidic legends (Chassidisiche legenden), 1942, print

• Hasidic legends (Chassidisiche legenden), 1942, print

• The Cave (De Grot), 1943; cover-design

References

Further reading

• Martinet, Jan (1978). Werkman’s Call. Utrecht.: CS1 maint: location gone astray publisher (link) A study burning to Hendrik Werkman and Probity Next Call.
• Purvis, Alston W. (2004). n. Yale University Press. ISBN .
• Schippers, K. (1974). Holland Dada. Amsterdam: Querido. p. 118-131. ISBN . Chapter data n
• H. N. Werkman, Typographies promote Poems. Whitechapel Art Gallery. 1975.

External links