It's Now Possible to See “M.C. Escher: Impossible Reality”

August 3, 2010 

One of the largest, most comprehensive collections of the work of Maurits Cornelius Escher is currently on display at The New Britain Museum of American Art.  

Escher (1898-1972) earned worldwide acclaim as a printmaker, draftsman, book illustrator, and muralist with his graphic work of visual puzzles and impossible structures. The exhibit includes one hundred and thirty works spanning his career — the most representative as well as rare works — including the seminal  “Ascending Descending," “Drawing Hands,” "Belvedere," "Waterfall," “Concave and Convex” and “Relativity." 

The New Britain exhibition also includes rare Escher ink drawings such as “Church Organ,” “Stalks in Field,” and “Tree.” Prints show tessellations such as “Development”, “Day and Night”, “Circle Limit I”, “Fish and Scales,” and the series Escher created for the book “The Regular Division of the Plane." 

“Even if you don’t know that much about the artist these lithographs, especially the tessellations, are fun to look at," said Linda Mare, associate curator of education for the New Britain Museum of American Art. They were inspired by mathematics, mosaics, and architecture. 

“Escher never studied extensively in mathematics,” said Mare. “Still, the mind-bending techniques and impossible realities depicted in his works make you believe he was a brilliant mathematician.” 

“This will be, with regard to quality, the finest Escher collection exhibited in the world," said Nicolas Kondoprias, the Managing Director of Museum-Herakleidon, of the New Britain exhibition. "Most works come directly from the estate of M.C. Escher.” 

The exhibit will be on display in Connecticut through mid-November, 2010, and later in the year in Akron, Ohio. 

For more on Escher, read Doris Schattschneider's timely article "The Mathematical Side of M.C. Escher". 

Source: The Hartford Advocate (July 13, 2010); The Bristol Press (July 21, 2010)