Becoming Escher

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 lacquerware box came from the home of Maurits Cornelis Escher’s parents, where Maurits – known to family and friends as Mauk – spent his childhood surrounded by all kinds of art objects his father had brought back from China and Japan. As a child, he played with the ivory puzzles, and made drawings of them as an adult. The hidden drawing that Joris Escher found at the bottom of the box unravels the system behind a six-part puzzle, revealing the solution step by step. This was typical of the young Escher, who would often make new discoveries while pondering conundrums.

Becoming Escher will highlight a number of M.C. Escher’s sources of inspiration. Growing up among Japanese screens, prints and other objects, the visual idiom they represented found its way into his early prints. Mauk developed his admiration of Japanese art and culture thanks to his father’s stories and the objects he brought back to the Netherlands. His father George Arnold Escher was one of the first hydraulic engineers invited by the imperial government in 1873 to modernise Japan’s infrastructure. In Japan, these ‘Water Men’ remain famous to this day.

The objects in this small exhibition will tell a story of family, history and connection, with a central role for the lacquerware box and the unknown drawings made by Escher and his father. It will also considers the role that George Escher played in Japan, and include a number of rare construction plans that he drew. These unique loans will be shown alongside objects from the museum’s own collection. The six-part puzzle, for example, also features in a unique work on display at Escher in The Palace – a drawing dating from 1943, almost twenty years later than the drawing in the box. M.C. Escher clearly remained fascinated by the puzzle many years later.
six-part puzzle, revealing the solution step by step. This was typical of the young Escher, who would often make new discoveries while doing puzzles.

Joris Escher wrote a book about his discoveries. Also entitled ‘Becoming Escher’ (Escher worden), it was published in the Netherlands last year by Atlas Contact, and is scheduled for publication in America this year. It details Joris’s quest to discover his great-uncle Mauk, on whose lap he remembers sitting as a small child. In a mix of fiction and non-fiction, the author follows in the footsteps of his famous forebear, visiting the same places, and exploring his beloved printmaking techniques. Joris Escher will loan the drawings and the box to a museum for the first time for this exhibition, along with other objects that shaped M.C. Escher.

Becoming Escher will show concurrently with an exhibition of photography, drawings and ceramics by Maura Biava and our collection exhibit featuring highlights from the work of M.C. Escher.