Here we tap into dates from M.C. Eschers life and work, jumping through time but always in the now. All year round you can enjoy background stories, anecdotes and trivia about this fascinating artist.
On 14 January 1898 Lewis Carroll, the British author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, died. Carroll passed away five months before Escher was born. Although their paths never crossed, the author and the artist have a lot in common. Both were frighteningly thin, both were addicted to long walks, both were obsessed by documenting the minutiae of their daily life, both were mad about chess and intrigued by game elements and by using these in their work.
The dazzling print Other World is one of Escher’s masterpieces. And rightly so. He created this combination of woodcut and wood engraving in January 1947. It is like looking through the windows of a brick room upon a crater-filled lunar surface. This is remarkable in itself, but what makes this print really impressive is that Escher combines three views (nadir, horizon and zenith) on this moon in one image.
The first post this year: a skull. Not the most obvious choice but for Escher it is not all that strange. He created several skulls and skeletons. Stand-alone works but also as part of a poster or a bookplate. This is the very first one, from January 1917. Maurits is 18 and fascinated by this symbol of mortality. In his youth in particular it kept him occupied, which is not that strange for a brooding adolescent.
We've reached the end of 2017. On Facebook and here, on Escher today, we brought you nearly 100 short stories and anecdotes about the life and work of M.C. Escher. All the images we used are collected in this video. We thank everyone for your attention this year and we will keep providing you with stories in 2018!
21 December, winter begins. Not Escher's favourite season, although during this time of the year he was most productive. He had no choice, there was nowhere else to go. For years he would travel during spring and summer and these trips would bring him inspiration for his prints. During autumn and winter, he would use his travel drawings and photo's for new woodcuts, wood engravings and lithographs. But the cold and snow that accompanied the winter months did not appeal to him much.
December 1938 is an ice-cold month in Brussels. A perfect setting for a little woodcut (18 x 14 cm) which Escher created shortly before for the Dutch critic and poet Jan Greshoff, who also lived in Brussels. For his 50th birthday on 15 December 1938, Greshoff’s friends offered him this woodcut, showing a wintry Brussels with his own house as a shiny beacon.
On 12 December 1934 the Dutch Historical Institute in Rome hosted the opening of an exhibition with paintings and drawings by Otto B. Kat (a personal friend of Maurits) and woodcuts and lithographs by M.C. Escher. Despite the rainy conditions, interest in the opening was huge. Fascism’s grip on Italian society was growing stronger by the day and this exhibition seemed to be used by many as counterbalance. World leaders as well as religious authorities were present, as were several directors of foreign institutions, museum directors, artists and critics.
On 8 December 1928 Arthur Eduard Escher was born, the second son of Maurits and Jetta. Arthur (named after Jetta’s father) was preceded by George in 1926 and followed by Jan in 1938. It was a complicated delivery and Jetta had to stay in hospital for several weeks. Just as he would do for Jan ten years later, Escher created a woodcut dedicated to the birth. He also made photos of the newborn and his brother.
Maurits, Jetta and their two sons spent July and August of 1934 in the artists’ village of Saint-Idesbald. The village is home to several museums, including that of the world-famous surrealist painter Paul Delvaux. Escher had rented a house there, together with his brother Eddy and sister-in-law Irma. During that holiday, Escher and Jetta visited Ghent, Bruges and Tournai. That same holiday Escher created a woodcut of the cathedrals of Ghent and Tournai.
Between 1948 and 1954 Escher created a series of planetoids and stars. These celestial bodies all appear to be set in the same science fiction world, a world that at first glance seems alien to the earthly, austere artist. The series began with the wood engraving Stars, which features two chameleons interlocked in a system of regular octahedrons.