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richly illustrated escher book

A bilingual Dutch/English catalogue will be published to accompany the wide-ranging exhibition Escher’s Journey. As in the exhibition, the book follows the travels of the world-famous graphic artist M.C. Escher, which had a decisive influence on his personal and artistic development. The catalogue contains all prints that will be on view inEscher’s Journey from 28 April and costs €29,95. It is published by the Museum of Friesland in collaboration with the M.C. Escher Foundation, Maurits S.r.l. and WBOOKS.

In Escher’s Journey, visitors follow in the footsteps of the travel-mad M.C. Escher. The book of the same name takes readers from his native city of Leeuwarden to the southern European landscapes that the artist loved so much. In the almost 200-page publication, the doors to Escher's imaginative power are opened. It contains a contribution by Escher collector Federico Giudiceandrea, followed by an overview of all the prints from the exhibition with short explanations, a brief biography and a bibliography.

escher’s journey

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) first saw the light of day in the former city palace of Maria-Louise van Hessen-Kassel in Leeuwarden, where the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics has been housed since 1917. After studying at the School of Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem, Escher ventured into the wider world. He was particularly inspired by Italy, not so much by the classics from art history as by the enchanting environments in which he found himself as he travelled from place to place. He was also struck by how Rome looked at night. Years later his imaginings of Atrani on the Amalfi coast played a key role in the well-known woodcut Metamorphosis II (1940). Escher lived in Italy from 1923 to 1935, and the years he spent there were among his happiest and most and productive.

inspiring italy

It is mainly the prints from Escher's Italian period that appealed to the technical engineer Federico Giudiceandrea. This collector owns one of Europe's largest private collections of Escher prints. He bought his first print, Relativity (1953), in the 1990s. Escher's Italian representations take Giudiceandrea back to the places he remembers from his youth and his time with his family. In his essay Giudiceandrea mainly discusses how Italy inspired M.C. Escher and became a source he would tap for years to come. The works Escher made here turned out to be the prelude to his inversions of reality that we know so well from his later work.

The exhibition ‘Escher’s Journey’ is made possible by our main sponsor ING, the Blockbuster Fund, the Mondriaan Fund, the Municipality of Leeuwarden, St. Anthony Gasthuis, De Haan Advocaten & Notarissen, Leeuwarden-Fryslân European Capital of Culture 2018, Aegon, Fryslân Province and the BankGiro Lottery.

The Museum of Friesland is co-funded by the Ir. Abe Bonnema Foundation, Fryslân Province, the Samenwerkingsverband Noord-Nederland, EZ/Kompas, the BankGiro Lottery and Aegon.

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