About M.C. Escher (1898–1972)

“I try in my prints to testify that we live in a beautiful and orderly world, not in a chaos without norms, even though that is how it sometimes appears.”—M. C. Escher

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1972) is best known for wood engravings and lithographs of repeating geometric patterns and intricate visual paradoxes. His work has been described as the perfect combination of art and mathematics.

Born in the Netherlands into a family of scientists and engineers, Escher originally planned to become an architect. In 1918 he began studies at the Higher Technology School in Delft, and then at the age of 21, he moved to Haarlem to study at the now-defunct School of Architecture and Decorative Arts. However, by 1919 Escher discovered that his true interest lay in graphic arts, and he began his studies with Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, from whom he learned woodcut-printing techniques.

In the early 1920s Escher traveled by ocean freighter along the coasts of Italy and Spain. His visits to the Alhambra, a fourteenth-century Moorish palace in Granada, and the tenth-century Great Mosque of Cordoba were pivotal in his artistic career. His lifelong fascination with the regular division of the plane, distilled in the repeating symmetrical patterns of his “tessellation” drawings, can be traced back to the time he spent at these sites copying decorative tiles.

While traveling in Italy in 1923, Escher met Jetta Umiker, the daughter of a Swiss trader. The couple married in 1924 and lived in Rome until 1935, when the rise of Fascism forced their move back to Jetta’s family home in Switzerland. Escher, his wife, and their first son, George, soon moved on to Belgium and then in 1941 to Baarn, the Netherlands, where Escher lived for the rest of his life.

After his second visit to the Alhambra in 1936, Escher started to produce artwork that was no longer inhibited by conventional laws of the physical universe; he began creating the gravity-defying spatial illusions for which he is best known. He worked in various media—including wood engraving, watercolor, pencil, ink, and lithography—to create his visual puzzles.

Out of synch with contemporary art trends, Escher’s work was largely ignored during the 1940s and 1950s until it was discovered by scientists and mathematicians, who found in Escher’s images a connection with theories about infinity and multi-dimensional reality. In turn, through his contact with mathematicians, Escher developed a fascination with the Möbius strip and the impossible triangle popularized by Roger Penrose.

In 1951 Time and Life magazines published articles about Escher, and in 1954 he had a large exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam on the occasion of the International Mathematical Conference. That same year, he exhibited at the Whyte Gallery in Washington, DC. In the 1960s Escher’s work was popularized by young Americans who regarded him as the first psychedelic artist. His renown in the United States grew further after articles appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and Scientific American in 1961.

In 1968 Escher and his wife separated. She moved back to Switzerland, but they never divorced. Also that year, he exhibited at the Mickelson Gallery in Washington, DC, and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. In 1970 he moved to a retirement home for elderly artists. At the time of his death from cancer in 1972, Escher had a worldwide following.

Two books on Escher’s art were published during his lifetime: The Graphic Work of M. C. Escher (1959) and The World of M. C. Escher (1971). His legacy lives on in the many images of his work included in mathematics textbooks and on countless commercial products, and at the Escher Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands.