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Lot Essay
Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman created Vrouweneiland in 1942. By then the artist had unmistakably found his personal style. His artistic career took off in the 1920's, when Werkman ran his own commercial printworks in Groningen. Going bankrupt drove him to start printing his own poems and pamphlets in an unconventional way by composing the lead type free of rules. Over the years Werkman expanded his technique with figurative alternatives for the printing elements in the cases. He started using stencils, the inkrol and stamps.
During the restricting period of World War II these were the resources for the series of paradisiac islands printed in 1942. In the month July Werkman created his twenty-two sheets, druksels, forming the series Vrouweneiland.
This series follows the much earlier Southsea Island series of the mid ninety-thirties. Both series reflect Werkman's longing to leave Groningen after several disappointing love affairs. He felt inspired by Gaugain and seriously considered to settle on Tahiti.
Werkman found a tempting source for his vision of paradise in a book by L. R. Gratema. The author reports of a blissful world where hedonism prevails. Suggestive photographs of naked bathing girls did the rest.
The book was published in 1931 and was still on Werkman's mind in 1942. In a letter to Julia Henkels he refers to the publication and writes: "de druksels van het paradijs [...] daar ben ik heen gevlucht omdat het in onze wereld bijna niet meer uit te houden is".
Werkman never went to Tahiti. He chose the route of inner emigration. In his daydreams the artist identifies with a man travelling on a horseback to find a place of bliss yet unknown. These daydreams might explain the horses on Vrouweneiland XXII. Two women and three horses are figuring on the last sheet of the series. As though the artist was there.
During the restricting period of World War II these were the resources for the series of paradisiac islands printed in 1942. In the month July Werkman created his twenty-two sheets, druksels, forming the series Vrouweneiland.
This series follows the much earlier Southsea Island series of the mid ninety-thirties. Both series reflect Werkman's longing to leave Groningen after several disappointing love affairs. He felt inspired by Gaugain and seriously considered to settle on Tahiti.
Werkman found a tempting source for his vision of paradise in a book by L. R. Gratema. The author reports of a blissful world where hedonism prevails. Suggestive photographs of naked bathing girls did the rest.
The book was published in 1931 and was still on Werkman's mind in 1942. In a letter to Julia Henkels he refers to the publication and writes: "de druksels van het paradijs [...] daar ben ik heen gevlucht omdat het in onze wereld bijna niet meer uit te houden is".
Werkman never went to Tahiti. He chose the route of inner emigration. In his daydreams the artist identifies with a man travelling on a horseback to find a place of bliss yet unknown. These daydreams might explain the horses on Vrouweneiland XXII. Two women and three horses are figuring on the last sheet of the series. As though the artist was there.