Johan D. Scherft - Beautiful old color etching "Mauritskade The Hague" signed in pencil

• Johannes Daniël Scherft (The Hague, 18 August 1891 – ibid., 8 August 1969) was a Dutch etcher, painter, etching printer and gallery owner.

Life and work
Johannes Daniël Scherft, who never called himself anything other than Johan D. Scherft, was closely connected to The Hague by birth and work. He married Antonia Cornelia van der Marel on 4 May 1920. Three daughters and a son were born from the marriage.[1]
Scherft sang in the choir of Die Haghe Sangers, was a member of the IOOF, the Dutch Art Circle, Arti et Industriae and the Hague Art Circle. He was a board member of the Royal Dutch Singers Association and an honorary member of the parent association of Gymnasium Haganum.
Johan D. Scherft is the grandfather of the Leiden artist Johan S. Scherft (1970) and the Slavist Jan Paul Hinrichs.

Scherft's career as a typographer and etching printer began in 1903, immediately after the sixth grade of primary school. As a printer's apprentice he started working at the HP de Swart & Zoon printing company in the Oude Molstraat, where he would continue to work until 1916. From 1912 he followed an evening course at the Bik & Vaandrager drawing institute. In the same year he passed the lower hand drawing certificate. From 1915 he started printing etchings for students of this drawing institute on a small etching press. In 1916 he bought a large etching press which formed the basis for the etching printing company he ran in The Hague until his death.
Besides being a printer, he was also active as an artist. He made about 150 etchings, mostly cityscapes. He also made paintings and watercolors, mostly still lifes and nature images. Vacations often provided inspiration for this.
Scherft ran several printing houses and art galleries: from 1920 to 1924 he ran "Kunstzaal Graficus" together with the Levisson printing house; in the 1920s Scherft opened an etching, book and commercial printing house at Marconistraat 100; and in 1932 he opened an art gallery at Laan van Meerdervoort 88. In his art gallery Scherft exhibited the work of dozens of Dutch and foreign artists, including Pablo Picasso, James Ensor and Maurits Escher.[6] In 1933 Escher was the first artist to have a one-man exhibition in Scherft's art gallery. On the occasion of the opening of Scherft's art gallery Escher gave a lecture on graphic art. In 1941 Scherft organised another exhibition for Escher's work, in which his later famous woodcuts were exhibited, including the work Day and Night.
In May 1943 the printing works was closed after much of its machinery and printing equipment had been requisitioned by the German authorities; only the etching press remained.
As a printer, Scherft produced many commercial printed matter. In addition to etchings, Scherft also printed linocuts, woodcuts and wood engravings. He printed the work of over two hundred artists, including Philip Zilcken, Willem de Zwart, Adriaan van 't Hoff, Nico Bulder and Arend Hendriks.
In 1950, Scherft moved with his wife to Zeist, where he had a house built at Van Renesselaan 64. During this time, he earned money mainly from the Christmas cards he etched and sold to bookshops. In 1954, the couple returned to the Hague house at Marconistraat 100. In 1966, the fiftieth anniversary of the etching printing company was festively celebrated