A pink female figure lies among blue waves. She is composed of several fields. Her face, which lacks a nose, mouth and eyes, gazes into the yellow sky, in which we can see red and blue streaks. They demonstrate the cycle of nature: the streaks rise out of the water as vapor and descend again as raindrops. Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman, of Groningen, was first and foremost a printer as well as a graphic artist. He was known for his many inventive ‘druksels’ (prints), as he called them. He used several different printing techniques for ‘Female figure with waves and yellow sky’. The colour was applied to the paper using an ink roller rather than a printing press. Werkman used a template cut from paper for the female figure. The blue and red streaks were hand-stamped using leading from his typecase. This print was made in 1941. The idyllic depiction is a sharp contrast to the bleak wartime conditions in which he lived. The artist was arrested by the German occupiers in 1945 on suspicion of producing illegal printwork. He was executed on April 10th the same year, without trial.