H.N. Werkman (1882-1945) - De weg terug

This print or lithograph is a limited edition from the Groninger Museum from 1985 and the large one without a frame is 50x32 cm.
It is in very good condition and the photos are an integral part of the description.
H.N. Werkman (1882-1945) - Chassidic Legends (illustration), The Way Back
The Chassidic Legends. The Way Back. This is a print from the well-known Litho series.
Early 1941, H.N. Werkman read Martin Buber's The Legend of Baal-Shem, a collection of stories about the eighteenth-century Polish Jewish teacher Yisroel ben Eliezer, nicknamed the Baal Shem Tov. Werkman was deeply impressed. In a short time he created, with stencils, printing ink, and other materials from his printing shop, twenty compositions inspired by these wondrous stories. In this way he overcame the artistic block he had felt since the beginning of the German occupation.

In 1942 and 1943 Werkman printed editions of these prints, divided into two series of ten, which he called Suites. They appeared at the clandestine publisher De Blauwe Schuit, for which Werkman produced a total of forty issues between 1941 and 1944. The texts in this forty‑part series, of which the Chassidic Legends were part, usually did not directly relate to the war situation, but did refer to it. With revolutionary songs and psalms, but also modern stories and poetry, the publishers sought to give their audience a boost of morale. That succeeded, in part thanks to Werkman’s colorful illustrations.

Werkman was arrested in the spring of 1945 by the Sicherheitsdienst. The liberation of Groningen on 15 April came too late for him. On 10 April 1945 he, along with nine others, was executed at Bakkeveen.