Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman

I never have to search for subjects, they come to offer themselves - the right form is not always there immediately and that is why it is good to draw those small sketches beforehand. Otherwise it will become too wild, the work demands great calmness and if I am bound to time - for example when Greet [his wife] thinks that I should come home earlier - [then] it starts thundering, because peace has disappeared.

Moreover the book 'The Legend of Baal Shem', by Martin Buber gives beautiful images. I have read some chapters from it and the 'Werewolf' among others, has been written very beautifully.

one print gets born from the other one, and that is exactly the right thing of it - it keeps the mind ready.

This afternoon I just finished a print which I started Monday. We got a revolving door here in the post office [in the city Groningen] and that's such a nice thing to use.

There the telephone is ringing again - the engine, the machines [of the printing company] that call you with their sounds - those people who honor and tease [you] with their orders and admonitions - the chiefs who ask - the bills that have to be paid - the interest that force you to work.

The subject reports itself, it is never looked for. Afterwards a small drawing will follow for the color-planes which are determined immediately. These colors will be printed by large logs and updated and enlivened with the hand-roller. For pressing I use an old hand-press with lever (from c. 1800).. .Sometimes it is necessary to press heavily, other times only very light. Sometimes one half of the block is rolled in [with ink] bold, the other half only skimpy. By first printing sometimes the first layer of paint on a piece of paper, a gentle tint appears which is then printed on the original. Another time I print the first print of the paper back on the original.. .As soon as the color-planes have been applied, the first state is reached, so to say..
..Of course all kinds of side-steps can be made, while working. In case of enlivening the picture - both in terms of color or decoration - the main goal I always keep in mind.

GRONINGEN, BERLIN, MOSCOW, PARIS 1923
Start of the violet season
Reader
As we are convinced that it is not too LATE, we will speak.
Time is running, honestly.. ..it has become necessary now to do something, before it is too late
There must be witnessing and speaking..
..Art is everywhere. She is thrown us people on our jackets by the birds. In every infant with weak intestines, the latent seed is laid for an artist..
Our first publication will soon be published. We urgently invite you to become a fellow reader [of the upcoming art-magazine 'The Next Call'].. .. We count on your DEEDS in the white season with the black shadows..

It was a tough job [the 20 prints of his 'Chassidic Legends']; I have been working effortlessly and incessantly [during 1941-1943]. But it was fascinating and the job gave me also relaxation. Now that it is finished, I can look back on it as a part of my life. I am happy that I have been able to accomplish the work, although there will come critical comments too. You can not escape that, even if you are doing your best best.

For me, life would be worthless if there was not modern art and if I did not had the opportunity to express myself in it anyhow, now that I have gradually found the way I can express myself.

I have applied for a pass and I am going to travel through Western Europe for 5 days. [I] start in Cologne and will probably end in Paris. Who cares. In Cologne there is a large exhibition of German painters [especially Die Brücke-artists]. Jan W. [= Jan Wiegers, who knew Kirchner very well since 1920] has been there and animated so much that I'm going there for a while.. ..it seems that Jan wants to come with me. He was so enthusiastic that I suspect to be able to note him as my traveling companion.

..not the familiar paradise, but the unknown - somewhere in a continent that hasn’t been discovered yet by anyone from the civilized countries - I have escaped [in his prints!] because it is almost unbearable to be in our world.

Last Sunday we made a bicycle tour of 80 km. Through the North along the edge of the province [Groningen].. ..On such a day I get again a lot of impressions which will reappear in altered forms in due time. Beautiful landscapes, nice small roads, beautiful farms, meadows with horses and cattle, birds, water and a lot of sunshine. Mills and towers and trees are breaking the lines of the flat land..

..When I have made some drawings I see them immediately in front of my eyes, enlarged [and] in colors..

As paint I use lightfast printing ink, usually pure, but also mixed. Mixing is not difficult at all, it but can happen in very different ways. Secret means are not applied, but I can not work on them, except in solitude (at sunshine). No one works in this way. I believe that no one else can obtain the same color effects, except after a lot of practice and experience. Sometimes one print goes up to 50 times under the printing-press. [I make] Never more than one piece per day.

I will keep for you the small drawings that I usually make beforehand. They don't have any artistic value. I just make them to have some grip for the composition of the print..