The Amazing World Of M.C. Escher

Looking for an experience with a difference? Why not join us for a visit to the exhibition followed by an Escher inspired film on the big screen in the Gallery.

The imaginative world of Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1972) is a playful and impossible place, his work executed with mathematic precision.

We are delighted to present the first major UK show of work by the great Dutch master draughtsman, bringing together works which made him one of the most famous artists of the 20th Century. The exhibition will include woodcuts, lithographs, drawings, watercolours and mezzotints, as well as exclusive archive material.

In 1918, Escher set out on a career as an architect, studying at the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem, Holland. It was here that a teacher spotted his talent as a draughtsman and printmaker, and he was advised to move into the Graphic Arts department. His career as a printmaker dates from this moment, and in his early prints it is clear that he already had an interest in the peculiarities of perspective and unusual vantage points.

Escher worked during the turn of the century, through two world wars, and alongside significant scientific and mathematic advancements. He continued his career in to the 1960s, when demand for copies of his prints reached fever pitch. These decades of development and revolution, as well as uncertainty, can be seen in Escher’s exploration of pattern, space and his surrealist viewpoints.

The exhibition has been organised by the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, and showcases nearly 100 works from the collection of the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands.