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Overview
Exhibition

Printer in times of war - H.N. Werkman and de Blauwe Schuit

Ballad for an imprisoned poet (1943), H.N. Werkman, Groninger Museum
Ballad for an imprisoned poet (1943), H.N. Werkman, Groninger Museum
Friday 7 February 2020 to Sunday 4 October 2020

Patriotism, perserverance, and hope for a better future; these are common themes in the prints of H.N Werkman for de Blauwe Schuit, founded at the end of 1940. Through prayers and Psalms as well as texts from the Jewish and Yiddish and modern poetry, the company reacts to the occupation.

De Blauwe Schuit was founded by Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman (1882-1945), pastor August Henkels, chemist Ate Zuithoff, and high school teacher Adri Buning. Hendrik Werkman was responsible for the typography and the colourful, occasionally exuberant illustrations in all the publications. For him and the other “Schippers van de Blauwe Schuit” (sailors of the blue barge), the publications are an outlet of personal resistance during the dark days of war.