Lot Essay
The prints in the present lot are all unsigned and unnumbered and belong to the small group of suites that Werkman printed outside the numbered edition of 20. He is known to have destroyed those prints that were not completely up to his extremely critical standards, which is confirmed by the fact that the prints in the present lot are certainly no less in quality than those from the numbered edition. Being unsigned and unnumbered, it would seem well possible that this suite was printed as part of the artist's personal copy of the Hassidic Legends. We may assume that, together with other material, this suite escaped confiscation from his house by the Germans in 1945 upon Werkman's execution, and came in the possession of his widow Margreet Werkman-van Leeuwen, who later presented it, along with the other prints now offered in this sale from the same property, to the present owner.
The incomplete textproofs that accompany the present suite, including the heading of text no. 2 which was cancelled in pencil and overprinted by that of text no. 4, are printed on paper of larger format than that used in the standard edition, which would seem to confirm that these also come from the artist's house, and may have been added only after his death. The further lots by Werkman offered in this sale with the same provenance include a proof of Henkels' poem 'De dichter en zijn dag' published in 1944 for Martinus Nijhoff (lot 570 in this sale). The text in this proof was corrected by Henkels, who also inscribed it with printing suggestions for Werkman. This proof also will have remained in Werkman's house until his death together with the other lots in this group, which further confirms their provenance.
Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman (1882-1945) started working with a printer already in 1900. In the years to follow, he lived through great personal struggles. As a printer he developed his own very personal printing techniques. For his druksels, as his prints are referred to, he printed each component separately, using the inkroller or the tilted roller, stamps and stencils. He converted the printing stage into a creative process. Hot printing, a name Werkman invented for a series of prints dating from the thirties, characterizes this direct manner perfectly and relates to the improvising Hot Jazz music he liked listening to. Because of these difficult and time-consuming techniques, Werkman needed more than two and a half years to print the two suites of the 'Hassidic Legends' in an edition of twenty. Apart from such larger publications many of his prints may be regarded as monotypes.
Although one can observe relationships between Werkman's typographical work and Kurt Schwitters' collages and the typography of other Dada artists, any resemblance is probably more coincidental than a result of direct influence. His prints and typography are less rigid than the works that appeared in the avant-garde journals he received in exchange for his own publication The Next Call. His work always retains a lyrical tone, not being created upon a consistent theoretical basis like that of the constructivists and the members of De Stijl by whom he was directly influenced. He never lost the emotional ties to the reality of every-day life. Through his acquaintance with Michel Seuphor, he was invited to participate in the exhibition Cercle et Carré in Paris in 1930, where artists like Arp, Van Doesburg, Kandinsky and Vantongerloo were represented.
From December 1940 on, Werkman printed for the illegal publishing house De Blauwe Schuit (The Blue Barge) that started its activities a few months after the German invasion. Their publications (a total of fourty, all printed by Werkman, cf. F.R.A. Henkels, Logboek van de Blauwe Schuit, Amsterdam 1946) were supposed to seem harmless bibliophile editions, but in their implications they gave a biting comment on the events that were taking place. Seemingly innocent publications like Luther's Windliecht Gottes, Nijhoff's Het jaar 1572 (see lot 568 in this sale) and the Turkenkalender (based on Gutenberg's Turks' Calender of 1454, edited in time of the danger of a Turkish invasion in Western Europe) were edited.
In 1940-1941 the oppression of especially Jewish inhabitants was forced up dramatically. In February 1941 many Jews were taken away by the Germans. It was in this month that Werkman was lent by his friend August Henkels, member of De Blauwe Schuit, a copy of 'Die Legende des Baalschem'. This was the famous translation by Martin Buber (Vienna 1878-1965 Jerusalem), published in 1908. For a discourse in 1932, Buber visited Groningen, where Werkman lived and worked.
On 17 February 1941, Werkman wrote to Henkels: 'I've read a few chapters in it. I find the Werewolf, among others, is sublimely written' (Jan Martinet, Chassidische Legenden, Een suite van H.N. Werkman, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen 1985, p. 26). In March of that year Henkels asked Werkman if he would make a series of prints illustrating the Baal-shem-Legends. This would result in the publishing of two suites of ten prints each.
On 17 March 1941 Werkman answered: 'From the moment I read your letter it has been occupying my mind right up till today. I could hardly sleep for two nights because of it... What a striking coincidence; while reading the 'legend' I said to myself I'd make one or two prints based on it and I'd already made a couple of sketches and now you come with this proposition. It isn't easy, I'm sure of that, but once I get started I'll make all ten one after the other... But I have by no means, read everything. I'm thinking about it all the time... I read no more than one story a night, that's enough for meditation.' (Op.cit.p.26).
Werkman had great difficulties concentrating on the work as in between some other publications were to be done for De Blauwe Schuit, but reading on in 'Die Legende des Baalschem' he found more and more inspiration. On 25 April 1941 he wrote: 'I'm now spending all my spare time reading The Legend of the Baal-Shem and the books you sent me on Jewish art, which have been of great help.' On Aprl 29, 1941: 'All is going well with the reading of the Baal-Shem. Everytime I finish a chapter I think: this is the most beautiful one I've read so far. That was especially the case with 'The Forgotten Story'. (Op.cit.p.28); this is the legend to which Werkman made the illustration of the Bishop and the Baal-Shem (plate 10). On 12 June 1941 he goes on: 'And now I'm under a tremendous strain to see whether I'll succeed in making the Baal-Shem suite into what I vaguely felt at first, and now imagine more and more consciously with each passing day.' (Op.cit.p.28).
He worked at the various plates with great enthousiasm but also was very critical, destroying each new design that didn't seem perfect. Reading the legends again and again, he succeeded in making what was to become one of the highlights in his oeuvre. He corresponded extensively about the work with his friends from De Blauwe Schuit, even with those who had been picked up by the Nazis in May 1942 and put into a hostage-camp in Sint Michielsgestel. Werkman finished the printing of the complete edition of the first sutie in November 1942 and the copies could be delivered in January 1943. Following the termination of the printing of the second suite in December of that year Werkman wrote: 'It's been quite a job, I've worked very hard and almost without stopping. But it was inspiring and relaxing at the same time. Now that it's finished I can look back on this as a part of my life.' (Op.cit.p.37).
Each print is based on the inspiration Werkman got from the various passages in the legend. He made one illustration to eight legends and two to six of the in all twenty-one legends. The present - first - suite includes the following prints:
1. 'The Children in the Forest' from 'The Werewolf' (M.41-17)
2. 'Fathers and Sons' from 'The Werewolf' (M.41-18)
3. 'The Inn in the Carpathians' from 'The Revelation' (M.41-19)
4. 'The Enforced Return' from 'The Revelation' (M.41-20)
5. 'The Call of the Earth' from 'The Walk through Heaven' (M.41-21)
6. 'The Journey to Jerusalem' from 'Jerusalem' (M.41-22)
7. 'The Journey back' from 'Jerusalem' (M.41-23)
8. 'The Ride to Berlin' from 'The Judgement' (M.41-24)
9. 'The Couple under the Bridal Canopy' from 'The Judgement' (M.41-25) 10.'The Bishop and the Baal-Shem' from 'The Forgotten Story' (M.41-26)
The title of each print is related to the passage of the legend it was made for. The portfolio of the present suite bears a print, which is a small version of 'The Ride to Berlin' (sheet 8).
On 13 March 1945 Werkman was arrested by the Germans, most probably under the suspicion of illegal printing. The pictures, drawings and prints found in his house were confiscated and lost in a fire during the liberation in April of the same year. On 10 April 1945 Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman was executed with nine others, leaving behind one of the finest illustrations to Jewish culture ever made. Only a few days later Groningen and the neighourhood in which Werkman lived was liberated. In prison he had tried to cheer up his fellow prisoners and himself by recounting the marvellous tales of the Legends of Baal-Shem. These had filled his thoughts since February 1941.
His biographer, Hans van Straten, wrote: 'He died like a Hasidim, his last deed was passing on the old miracle tales to his cellmates. His death was a direct consequence of his identification with Jews. By passing on these stories the thought which lay at the foundation of Werkman's creation was kept alive...'
Two years later Martin Buber again visited the Netherlands. Henkels seized the opportunity to show Buber Werkman's suite based on the legends. Buber was dumbstruck. Then he asked: 'Was he a Jew?.' (Op.cit.p.23).
Willem Sandberg, the later director of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and cooperator in founding the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, met Werkman in 1941 and knew his work very well. It was Sandberg who organized that Werkman's work was extensively exhibited in the United States in 1978-79, a.o. in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, after earlier exhibitions in the Netherlands. Further exhibitions in West Germany and England followed.
The major publication on Werkman's oeuvre by Jan Martinet, Hot Printing was published in 1963 in an English and Dutch edition. In 1985, Wolters Noordhoff published, in cooperation with Martinet, the facsimilé edition of the Hassidic Legends after the copy numbered 17/20 in the Groninger Museum, Groningen, together with a small book on the history and background of the making of this publication, from which we quoted in the above text.
See colour illustrations of the complete suite, p. 215; a colour illustration of Plate no. 4, p. 214; and an illustration of the title-vignette, p. 216
(the set of 10) and (2)
The incomplete textproofs that accompany the present suite, including the heading of text no. 2 which was cancelled in pencil and overprinted by that of text no. 4, are printed on paper of larger format than that used in the standard edition, which would seem to confirm that these also come from the artist's house, and may have been added only after his death. The further lots by Werkman offered in this sale with the same provenance include a proof of Henkels' poem 'De dichter en zijn dag' published in 1944 for Martinus Nijhoff (lot 570 in this sale). The text in this proof was corrected by Henkels, who also inscribed it with printing suggestions for Werkman. This proof also will have remained in Werkman's house until his death together with the other lots in this group, which further confirms their provenance.
Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman (1882-1945) started working with a printer already in 1900. In the years to follow, he lived through great personal struggles. As a printer he developed his own very personal printing techniques. For his druksels, as his prints are referred to, he printed each component separately, using the inkroller or the tilted roller, stamps and stencils. He converted the printing stage into a creative process. Hot printing, a name Werkman invented for a series of prints dating from the thirties, characterizes this direct manner perfectly and relates to the improvising Hot Jazz music he liked listening to. Because of these difficult and time-consuming techniques, Werkman needed more than two and a half years to print the two suites of the 'Hassidic Legends' in an edition of twenty. Apart from such larger publications many of his prints may be regarded as monotypes.
Although one can observe relationships between Werkman's typographical work and Kurt Schwitters' collages and the typography of other Dada artists, any resemblance is probably more coincidental than a result of direct influence. His prints and typography are less rigid than the works that appeared in the avant-garde journals he received in exchange for his own publication The Next Call. His work always retains a lyrical tone, not being created upon a consistent theoretical basis like that of the constructivists and the members of De Stijl by whom he was directly influenced. He never lost the emotional ties to the reality of every-day life. Through his acquaintance with Michel Seuphor, he was invited to participate in the exhibition Cercle et Carré in Paris in 1930, where artists like Arp, Van Doesburg, Kandinsky and Vantongerloo were represented.
From December 1940 on, Werkman printed for the illegal publishing house De Blauwe Schuit (The Blue Barge) that started its activities a few months after the German invasion. Their publications (a total of fourty, all printed by Werkman, cf. F.R.A. Henkels, Logboek van de Blauwe Schuit, Amsterdam 1946) were supposed to seem harmless bibliophile editions, but in their implications they gave a biting comment on the events that were taking place. Seemingly innocent publications like Luther's Windliecht Gottes, Nijhoff's Het jaar 1572 (see lot 568 in this sale) and the Turkenkalender (based on Gutenberg's Turks' Calender of 1454, edited in time of the danger of a Turkish invasion in Western Europe) were edited.
In 1940-1941 the oppression of especially Jewish inhabitants was forced up dramatically. In February 1941 many Jews were taken away by the Germans. It was in this month that Werkman was lent by his friend August Henkels, member of De Blauwe Schuit, a copy of 'Die Legende des Baalschem'. This was the famous translation by Martin Buber (Vienna 1878-1965 Jerusalem), published in 1908. For a discourse in 1932, Buber visited Groningen, where Werkman lived and worked.
On 17 February 1941, Werkman wrote to Henkels: 'I've read a few chapters in it. I find the Werewolf, among others, is sublimely written' (Jan Martinet, Chassidische Legenden, Een suite van H.N. Werkman, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen 1985, p. 26). In March of that year Henkels asked Werkman if he would make a series of prints illustrating the Baal-shem-Legends. This would result in the publishing of two suites of ten prints each.
On 17 March 1941 Werkman answered: 'From the moment I read your letter it has been occupying my mind right up till today. I could hardly sleep for two nights because of it... What a striking coincidence; while reading the 'legend' I said to myself I'd make one or two prints based on it and I'd already made a couple of sketches and now you come with this proposition. It isn't easy, I'm sure of that, but once I get started I'll make all ten one after the other... But I have by no means, read everything. I'm thinking about it all the time... I read no more than one story a night, that's enough for meditation.' (Op.cit.p.26).
Werkman had great difficulties concentrating on the work as in between some other publications were to be done for De Blauwe Schuit, but reading on in 'Die Legende des Baalschem' he found more and more inspiration. On 25 April 1941 he wrote: 'I'm now spending all my spare time reading The Legend of the Baal-Shem and the books you sent me on Jewish art, which have been of great help.' On Aprl 29, 1941: 'All is going well with the reading of the Baal-Shem. Everytime I finish a chapter I think: this is the most beautiful one I've read so far. That was especially the case with 'The Forgotten Story'. (Op.cit.p.28); this is the legend to which Werkman made the illustration of the Bishop and the Baal-Shem (plate 10). On 12 June 1941 he goes on: 'And now I'm under a tremendous strain to see whether I'll succeed in making the Baal-Shem suite into what I vaguely felt at first, and now imagine more and more consciously with each passing day.' (Op.cit.p.28).
He worked at the various plates with great enthousiasm but also was very critical, destroying each new design that didn't seem perfect. Reading the legends again and again, he succeeded in making what was to become one of the highlights in his oeuvre. He corresponded extensively about the work with his friends from De Blauwe Schuit, even with those who had been picked up by the Nazis in May 1942 and put into a hostage-camp in Sint Michielsgestel. Werkman finished the printing of the complete edition of the first sutie in November 1942 and the copies could be delivered in January 1943. Following the termination of the printing of the second suite in December of that year Werkman wrote: 'It's been quite a job, I've worked very hard and almost without stopping. But it was inspiring and relaxing at the same time. Now that it's finished I can look back on this as a part of my life.' (Op.cit.p.37).
Each print is based on the inspiration Werkman got from the various passages in the legend. He made one illustration to eight legends and two to six of the in all twenty-one legends. The present - first - suite includes the following prints:
1. 'The Children in the Forest' from 'The Werewolf' (M.41-17)
2. 'Fathers and Sons' from 'The Werewolf' (M.41-18)
3. 'The Inn in the Carpathians' from 'The Revelation' (M.41-19)
4. 'The Enforced Return' from 'The Revelation' (M.41-20)
5. 'The Call of the Earth' from 'The Walk through Heaven' (M.41-21)
6. 'The Journey to Jerusalem' from 'Jerusalem' (M.41-22)
7. 'The Journey back' from 'Jerusalem' (M.41-23)
8. 'The Ride to Berlin' from 'The Judgement' (M.41-24)
9. 'The Couple under the Bridal Canopy' from 'The Judgement' (M.41-25) 10.'The Bishop and the Baal-Shem' from 'The Forgotten Story' (M.41-26)
The title of each print is related to the passage of the legend it was made for. The portfolio of the present suite bears a print, which is a small version of 'The Ride to Berlin' (sheet 8).
On 13 March 1945 Werkman was arrested by the Germans, most probably under the suspicion of illegal printing. The pictures, drawings and prints found in his house were confiscated and lost in a fire during the liberation in April of the same year. On 10 April 1945 Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman was executed with nine others, leaving behind one of the finest illustrations to Jewish culture ever made. Only a few days later Groningen and the neighourhood in which Werkman lived was liberated. In prison he had tried to cheer up his fellow prisoners and himself by recounting the marvellous tales of the Legends of Baal-Shem. These had filled his thoughts since February 1941.
His biographer, Hans van Straten, wrote: 'He died like a Hasidim, his last deed was passing on the old miracle tales to his cellmates. His death was a direct consequence of his identification with Jews. By passing on these stories the thought which lay at the foundation of Werkman's creation was kept alive...'
Two years later Martin Buber again visited the Netherlands. Henkels seized the opportunity to show Buber Werkman's suite based on the legends. Buber was dumbstruck. Then he asked: 'Was he a Jew?.' (Op.cit.p.23).
Willem Sandberg, the later director of the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam and cooperator in founding the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, met Werkman in 1941 and knew his work very well. It was Sandberg who organized that Werkman's work was extensively exhibited in the United States in 1978-79, a.o. in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, after earlier exhibitions in the Netherlands. Further exhibitions in West Germany and England followed.
The major publication on Werkman's oeuvre by Jan Martinet, Hot Printing was published in 1963 in an English and Dutch edition. In 1985, Wolters Noordhoff published, in cooperation with Martinet, the facsimilé edition of the Hassidic Legends after the copy numbered 17/20 in the Groninger Museum, Groningen, together with a small book on the history and background of the making of this publication, from which we quoted in the above text.
See colour illustrations of the complete suite, p. 215; a colour illustration of Plate no. 4, p. 214; and an illustration of the title-vignette, p. 216
(the set of 10) and (2)