Exactly 50 years ago, on 20 April 1968, Dutch weekly magazine Vrij Nederland published a long interview with M.C. Escher by the legendary journalist Bibeb (Elisabeth Lampe-Soutberg). At the time Escher was not really looking forward to it. Because he found the contents to negative, he didn't really come around to reading the magazine thoroughly.

'I relented, though I do not see the good of it. We have gone through an initial three-hour seance, but she is not satisfied in the least. The day after tomorrow she will return for another whole afternoon. It is nice to see her work, though—we talk while she keeps a large notebook on her lap in which she is constantly writing, barely looking at it while she is doing so. What will come of it I do not know, but we are in this boat together so I will bravely keep rowing. She is an entertaining and rather nice woman. She gets along with mother too and vice versa. (I informed her upfront about our unusual circumstances, which the article will not mention.) I will get to read her handiwork, to make alterations if needed, before it gets printed.'

Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant publishes a gradually expanding series on postwar pop culture in the Netherlands. The paper describes the history in 100 objects, focussing on utensils, decorative items, sports equipment, clothing and art objects too. Art journalist Mark Moorman wrote a piece on the wooden sphere featuring lizards that Escher had carved from beech wood in 1949. We have translated it for our readers from abroad.

In Escher at The Palace you can always view Escher’s most well-known works: Day and Night, Ascending and Descending, Reptiles, Waterfall, Print Gallery, Relativity, Encounter, Other World, Convex and Concave, etc. Yet we do, of course, also devote attention to the many other prints from his oeuvre, which spans over 50 years. But before they are given the attention they deserve and their 15 minutes of fame, they await their turn in the archive. Patiently, yet determinedly.

Good Friday, St Matthew Passion Day. For Escher, Easter had always been tied closely to this oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach. He was not alone: the St Matthew Passion is without a doubt the most popular piece of classical music in the Netherlands. Each year most of this country is fixated on Bach in the days leading up to Easter. But for Escher this love prevailed all year round. Everything in his life was connected to this composer who resembled him in so many ways. The systematic approach, the rhythm, the repetition, the symmetry. The similarities are considerable.

Maurits and Jetta did not just have a great time during their trip across and around the Mediterranean Sea in the spring of 1936, their journey also proved to be a great source of inspiration for the artist. To pay for it Escher had offered to produce a print of every port town they visited and give several copies of these to the Italian shipping company Adria. To be used as they saw fit. Between August 1936 and March 1937 this led to a whole series of new prints, including some that we discussed previously: Leaning Tower of Pisa, Catania and Porthole.
Still Life and Street is based on this trip too. It started with a drawing of a street in the coastal town of Savona, which he did on 10 June. Whereas other works from this period are quite realistic, this woodcut (together with Still Life with Mirror) started Escher’s journey towards optical illusion. He was used to integrating ‘screens’ in his landscapes and cityscapes, by building the composition out of elements that are stacked behind each other within the visual field. But in Still Life and Street he uses the technique to generate a shock effect in the viewer.

The weather in the Netherlands is not really cooperating, but it is true: today is the start of spring!

A common feature in Escher’s work is birds. He created hundreds of them. In his woodcuts, wood engravings and occasionally in a lithograph. Sometimes by themselves, but usually in a group. But most often he used them in his tessellations, which are heavily populated by birds.

On 18 March 1960 Escher finished one of his most iconic works: the lithograph Ascending and Descending. The print was the result of a remarkable exchange of ideas between the graphic artist and the British mathematician Roger Penrose. The latter first came into contact with M.C. Escher at his solo exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1954, which was held during the International Congress of Mathematicians of that year.

Today is the start of ‘Boekenweek’ (Book Week), a nice occasion to highlight an artwork that is increasingly rare: a bookplate. Escher created several of them, mostly for friends. The first one when he was only 17, for his own library.
The one you see here, from 1946, was for his opposite neighbour in Baarn, engineer Albert Ernst Bosman. He must have been a bookworm, looking at the one Escher pictured in this bookplate. He did not know it yet but this neighbour would be of great significance to him. Bosman was the one to bring him in contact with Hans de Rijk, the man of many pseudonyms.

On 5 March 1965 Escher received the culture prize of the city of Hilversum. He gave a lecture in which he demonstrated once again how funny he could be. For many people the name Escher calls to mind an image of a bearded, strict, precise man labouring away on mind-boggling prints in the isolation of his study.
This image existed in his own time too and is one that Escher initially endorses in his lecture:

'By nature I am not spontaneous. Creating a graphic print demands patience and deliberateness and the ideas that I want to express in it usually come to life after careful consideration. Therefore, I mostly spend my time in a quiet studio and, however beneficial it might be to practicing my profession, it does not foster eloquence.'

Despite the atrocities of war, some kind of optimism took hold of Escher at the end of February 1943. It was fuelled by nature. On 20 February he writes in his diary: ‘two butterflies and lots of snowdrops around farmers gardens’. And on the 22 February: ‘first song of the blackbird’. On 3 March 1943 he even starts working on a new print. For this lithograph, Reptiles, he does have to borrow a stone. That is why only 30 copies were printed.