H.N. Werkman: Monographics

New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Paperback. VG. Color-illustrated wraps with red and black lettering. 112 pp. Color illustrations. "Dutch designer and printmaker Hendrik Werkman (1882-1945) is best known for his innovative printing techniques and avant-garde typography. As publisher of De Blauwe Schuitt, a series of underground booklets produced by Jewish dissident poets and writers during the Nazi occupation of Holland, Werkman was arrested and imprisoned by German secret police in 1945 and executed without trial just three days before the country's liberation. This illustrated book is the first in English to focus on Werkman's remarkable graphic work and extraordinary life." "Werkman began his career as a journalist and amateur photographer before founding his own printmaking shop in 1908. The first issue of his self-produced magazine The Next Call was published in 1923 and included typographical and other printmaking experiments as well as the designer's own Dadaist poems and texts. A perpetual innovator, Werkman developed a printmaking process he called "hot printing," a technique incorporating found materials as plate elements that added repeated design elements such as stencils and rollers directly onto the paper - all without the use of a printing press. Throughout the 1930s, Werkman continued his experiments and supported himself by producing leaflets and posters. Though much of his work was destroyed at the time of his execution, the remarkable examples that remain tell the story of a maverick designer and typographer whose graphic vision was playful, bold, experimental, and unwaveringly optimistic."--Jacket.