Letters full of admiration

From 18 March to 7 September, Escher in The Palace exhibits a special loan, namely a carefully written letter from Escher enthusiast Hendrik Dekker. In the letter, he expresses his admiration for the print Reptiles (1943). The handwritten response by Escher himself is also on display.

In Reptiles , Escher brings one of his tessellations to life, as a three-dimensional reptile emerges from an open sketchbook containing two-dimensional images of reptiles. The creature climbs onto a book, follows the path of its life, pauses for breath on a dodecahedron, and then returns to the book, where it becomes a two-dimensional drawing once more. This cycle was interpreted by some, during Escher’s own lifetime, as a reference to reincarnation. The more well known his work became, the more people wrote to him with such ideas about his work. His fame grew rapidly after the major retrospective of his work at the Haags Gemeentemuseum (now: Kunstmuseum Den Haag) in 1968 and an article by journalist Bibeb published in the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland that same year.

In June 1971, Dekker wrote a letter to Escher in response to this print. The letter has now been loaned to the museum by his granddaughter. Dekker had been to the exhibition in The Hague and was fascinated by Reptiles, a reproduction of which he had at home. He complimented Escher profusely and alluded to a deeper meaning in the print, ‘by way of appreciation for what your creation has given me’. Dekker thought Escher’s statements were too modest. Escher responded in a brief note, saying that he had read Dekker’s free interpretation of his work with great interest. He was glad that his work ‘prompted such cheerful and appreciative contemplation’. He had received a lot of response to Reptiles and said that everyone was right in their own way, despite the fact that their views did not coincide with his own.

This exchange of letters contains a polite exchange of views, but Escher did not always send such a warm response. He had previously been approached by Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones, who requested permission to use one of his prints on the cover of their new LP. He did not enjoy their music, and the manner in which he was addressed also offended him. Jagger had opened with ‘Dear Maurits’, and in Escher’s response to the band’s assistant, he wrote, ‘By the way, please tell Mr. Jagger I am not Maurits to him, but Very sincerely, M.C. ESCHER’.

Escher wrote his postcard to Dekker from the Rosa Spier Huis, the residential community of artists and academics in Laren where he was living at the time. He was convalescing after surgery earlier that year. Unfortunately, he never actually made a full recovery, and died shortly afterwards at the Diaconessenhuis hospital in Hilversum.