Herman Moerkerk - Alcohol is the plague, my gentlemen, the plague - Sold

Very nice caricatured drawing against alcohol abuse by Herman Moerkerk.

Hermanus Antonius Josephus Maria (Herman) Moerkerk (Den Bosch, March 2, 1879 – Haarlem, August 23, 1949) was a Dutch painter, illustrator, draftsman and book cover designer. Moerkerk attended grammar school in Sittard and later made a name for himself as a writer, director and poster designer. He did not receive any art training, but was a student of the calligrapher Theodorus van Kempen (1896), of the painter Piet Slager Sr., and from 1899 he took lessons with the painter Jan Bogaerts. Moerkerk developed as an independent artist: around 1910 he was already quite famous as a draftsman, especially for his caricatures of Brabant folk types. He also provided reviews in the Brabant newspapers and was active as an organizer of the carnival. He also wrote a number of fairy tales and children's books.
Because he felt misunderstood as a painter, he exhibited about forty expressionist oil paintings in Tilburg in August 1927 under the pseudonym Alexei Wladkine, which differed from his other work. At this exhibition, Moerkerk mingled with the audience and made critical comments to them about the works he had created.

In 1928 he left with his family for Haarlem, where he joined De Spaarnestad. He worked there until 1940 as an employee of the Catholic Illustration; he also designed book bindings and book covers. Moerkerk also worked as a draftsman for the Catholic newspaper De Tijd and was the stage director of the Haarlem Rhetoric Chamber Alberdingk Thijm, founded in 1890. The painter Jacques Pijnenborg was one of his students.