Exhibition archive

The talented Julie de Graag was one of Escher’s contemporaries, who died exactly 100 years ago this year. She shared a love of nature with M.C. Escher. Her woodcuts managed, in just a few details, to capture the essence of plants, animals and portrait subjects. De Graag’s work will be shown at Escher in The Palace alongside that of Escher.

Maurits Cornelis Escher achieved world-wide fame with his optical illusions but it is less well known that he also made art for public spaces. In 1959-60, he designed a tile tableau with fish and birds, inspired by his famous print Sky and Water I (1938), for a villa in the south of Amsterdam.

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 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.

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 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.

This week, a long-concealed self-portrait of Rembrandt is set to return to The Hague. From Tuesday 29 November onwards, it will be on display in Escher in The Palace, which was home to it from 1850 to 1894, when the palace belonged successively to Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands and his sister Great Duchess Sophie. The painting has not been seen in the Netherlands since 1898 – for nearly 125 years – and has not even been on public display since 1967.

During Art The Hague Escher in the Palace is showing two sculptures by Hans van Bentem, an artist who is inextricably linked to the museum. Since it opened, its rooms have been graced by his huge chandeliers in a whole range of forms, including a skull, a bomb and a spider. The glittering crystal enhances the majestic feel of the palace, and lightheartedly reflect the fantasy element in the work of Escher.