An extraordinary find led Joris Escher to a voyage of discovery into the life and work of his great-uncle, Maurits Cornelis Escher. Among family heirlooms, Joris found a Chinese lacquerware box containing ivory puzzles. Hidden in the bottom he found some drawings by M.C. Escher and his father, Joris’s great-grandfather. Escher in The Palace is to show them for the first time in an exhibition entitled Becoming Escher.
The Italian artist Maura Biava is curious about the world around her, a trait she shares with M.C. Escher. For her photography, drawings and ceramic work, she draws inspiration from nature and mathematics. In her solo exhibition at Escher in The Palace, she is showing three underwater photography works, new ceramic works and the resulting photography, as well as a series of works on paper.
Museum Escher in The Palace in The Hague recently acquired a unique work by Maurits Cornelis Escher: a woodcut of a white cat. While unmounting it, an unknown text by M.C. Escher himself was also discovered. The woodcut of the white cat had long been on the wish list of Escher in The Palace. The fact that this print is a counterprint makes the acquisition even more exceptional, and a fantastic addition to the collection.
The themes close to M.C. Escher's heart are still alive and kicking. Even today, we see artists incorporating optical illusion, reflection, nature and architecture into their artworks. In the major autumn exhibition Just Like Escher, Escher in The Palace shows how contemporary artists and designers such as Damien Hirst, Iris van Herpen, Chris Ofili and Carlijn Kingma challenge Escher's ideas.
In 2023 it is 125 years since Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) was born. Escher is a celebrated artist, but this would not have been the case had it not been for his mentor and good friend Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita (1868-1944). The striking work of De Mesquita hangs alongside that of his most famous pupil at Escher in The Palace.