Reizang van burgers, terugkeerend uit de ballingschap [Travel song of…

A poem by Pieter Cornelis Boutens (1870-1943) from his Middelburg’s Overgang, here printed by Werkman to be distributed amongst the members of De Blauwe Schuit, presumably as a tribute to the great Dutch poet who had died the previous year. In 1919 Boutens had written a beautiful volume of poetry about homosexual love which he published as being the work of a poet who had died young (he named him Andries de Hoghe).
The Dutch designer and printmaker Hendrik Werkman (1882-1945) is best known for his innovative printing techniques and avant-garde typography. He often used stencils, reprinted a single sheet multiple times sometimes without re-inking the block, used various thickness of inks and varying pressure from the press to create what he called ‘druksels’ or repeated impressions (shadowing).
Werkman was the publisher of ‘De Blauwe Schuit’, a clandestine publishing house which between 1941 and 1945 printed a series of underground booklets, about 46 works in total, by dissident authors and poets, including Jewish writers, during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. They were printed by him in tiny editions of between 15 and 150 copies. The typographer and printer was imprisoned by German secret police in 1945 and executed without trial just three days before the liberation of The Netherlands. Many of his works were seized during his arrest and were lost during the ensuing destruction of the Scholtenhuis where they were taken.