Escher Today

In 1946, Escher delved into the mezzotint, a technique that was new to him. The possibility of obtaining extremely subtle gradations of light and dark with this technique fascinated him.

Early 1955 Escher worked on an assignment for a liberation print to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the liberation on 5 May that year. He had mixed feelings about it, he wrote in a letter to his son Arthur on 22 January.

On 27 April 1936 Escher embarks upon the freighter Rossini from the Italian town of Fiume. Before that he travelled from his residence Chateau d’Oeux to Trieste by train. With the Rossini he travels to Venice, Ancona and Bari. From 2 to 4 May he visits the Sicilian harbour town of Catania.

From 2 to 16 May 1926 Escher exhibited 22 woodcuts and around 40 drawings at the Palazetto Venezia in Rome. For the exhibition, he created this announcement card.

On 27 April 1932 Escher was in the Sicilian town Napels, with his travel companion Giuseppe Haas-Triverio. They left Rome on the 22nd after which they travelled to Palermo via Naples. In four weeks they toured the island intensively. They finally returned to the Italian capital on May 20, filled with impressions, a folder with freshly made drawings, and many photos. Some of these he would use later to create new prints. The photo taken in Patti, many other ones and several drawings, woodcuts and lithographs featured in our exhibition Escher, close up.

On 22 April 1932 Maurits Escher leaves for Italy, together with his friend and painter Giuseppe Haas-Triverio. Their destination: Sicily. In the square in front of the church in Gangi a couple of street urchins ask them if they would like to see some dead priests.

Birds are a regularly recurring subject in Escher’s work, mostly in one of his many tessellations. Sun and Moon, a woodcut from April 1948, is one of them. But there is something special about this one.

Around 1946 Escher became fascinated by mathematical spatial figures. He was captivated by the regularity and necessity of these shapes, which are mysterious and quite unfathomable to humans. He was stimulated in this by his brother, geologist and professor Berend George Escher, who gave him a copy of his standard work 'Algemene Mineralogie en Kristallographie' (1935). Escher drew on this fascination to create both very small worlds (crystals) and very large ones (stars and planets). One of the most beautiful planets is Tetrahedral Planetoid, from April 1954.

In the months of April to June 1922, Escher makes a trip to Italy, followed by a journey to Spain by cargo boat in the autumn. His hunger for travel remains yet unsatisfied, and in November he visits Italy for a second time. First Genoa and Pisa and on 15 November he is back in Siena. He is delighted by the light blue sky over the hills of Tuscany. He is happy.

Maurits Escher has visited Italy several times before, but when he boards the train to Florence on 5 April 1922 things are a bit different. Where he used to travel with his parents, he is now accompanied by his friends Jan van der Does de Willebois, Bas Kist and Jan's sister Alexandra (Lex).