Herman Heijenbrock

Herman Heijenbrock (1871 in Amsterdam – 1948 in Blaricum), was a Dutch writer, painter, pastel draughtsman, and lithographer. He founded the "Museum van den Arbeid" in 1923, which later became NEMO Science Museum.

He was the son of a baker and merchant in marine equipment. According to the RKD he learned to paint at the "Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten" in Rotterdam. Soon after graduation he visited the Borinage, a coal-mining district in Belgium. He found work in a theater making backdrops and later went to work as an art-journalist and draughtsman for the Rotterdams Nieuwsblad, which he quit in 1898 to become a professional landscape painter in Noordwijk. He returned to the Borinage to make sketches of the picturesque surroundings, but became depressed by the working conditions and the high amount of disease among the miners and their families. He tried to convince various influential artists to help him work on improving the working conditions of the common man, but met with little success. He wrote a pamphlet called "Onze samenleving in woord en beeld" (Amsterdam, circa 1899) in which he explained his view on working conditions, though he felt that social democracy was not the answer.

He married in 1899 and moved to Melkweg 2, Blaricum where he became active in the art colony in the neighboring town of Laren. He and his wife became friends with the artist R.N. Roland Holst and his wife, the poet Henriette Roland Holst, and the poet Herman Gorter, who all lived near their home in Blaricum. He began corresponding with Frederik van Eeden over his interest in improving working conditions, and responded to Van Eeden's 1899 lecture 'Waarvoor werkt gij?' (Why do you work?) with another pamphlet "Over de Nieuwe Tijden" (About modern times). He shared the political views of Daniël de Clercq and in 1901-1902 they organized some lectures where Van Eeden spoke. He travelled with Van Eeden's brother-in-law to the Ruhrgebiet to see the industrial lifestyle there. Heijenbrock agreed with the American writer Gerald Stanley Lee who said "Not to see poetry in the machinery of this present age, is not to see poetry in the life of the age. It is not to believe in the age." In 1910 Van Eeden brought the writer Lee over to the Netherlands to hold lectures on his "Voice of the Machines" and they visited Heijenbrock. Van Eeden described him after that meeting in his diary as "our greatest painter".

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