Bust of Herman Heijermans

Person depicted Herman Heijermans (1864-1924)
Artist Gerarda Rueter (1904-1993)
Medium Bluestone sculpture
Year 1949

Herman Heijermans was born in Rotterdam into a liberal Jewish family. He began his working life as a reviewer for De Telegraaf and wrote his first major play, Ghetto, in 1898, about the stifling world of orthodoxy. In 1900 he wrote Op hoop van zegen, and his collaboration with Esther de Boer-van Rijk reached its height. With Eva Bonheur, De wijze kater and Schakels, he ranks among the most influential Dutch playwrights. He wrote about social questions and brought poverty and injustice to the attention of a wide public. His productions are said to have stirred audiences so deeply that after one performance a spectator knocked a piece off the nose of the sculpture Gerarda Rueter made in 1949 — though that seems unlikely.