News — Nov 21, 2013

Stichting H. N. Werkman donates work to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the Groninger Museum. The Stedelijk Museum receives 94 works, the Groninger Museum 59 works.

On November 20, 1962, as Willem Sandberg was preparing to step down as director of the Stedelijk Museum, a foundation named Stichting H. N. Werkman was established with the aim of promoting the work of Werkman to a broader audience, partly through the publication of a catalogue raisonné Thanks to the efforts of the foundation, the handsome catalogue on the artist’s work, H. N. Werkman. Het Complete Oeuvre was published in 2008, accompanied later by the publication Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman, Brieven rond De Blauwe Schuit 1940–1945.  

The foundation is now being disbanded because it has achieved its aim of promoting Werkman’s work by publishing a catalogue of his complete oeuvre. To mark the occasion, the foundation is dividing its Werkman collection between the two museums that nurture and conserve the legacy of this artist and printer. The works were donated to the foundation by Werkman’s widow, Greet Werkman van Leeuwen; and by the recently deceased art connoisseur and collector Piet Sanders, who was the first chair of Stichting H. N. Werkman. Professor Geert H. Blijham, the current chair, will present the Stedelijk Museum with 94 works. Fifty-nine works in the gift will go to the Groninger Museum.

On Thursday, November 21, managing director Karin van Gilst will accept the donation on behalf of the Stedelijk Museum, and director Andreas Blühm on behalf of the Groninger Museum.

For more info: see press release