M. C. Escher (Maurits Cornelius Escher) - 1898-1972
The youngest son of an engineer in the Netherlands, the left-handed artist actually failed his high school exams. Eventually, Escher studied at Haarlem's School for Architecture and Decorative Arts. He married in 1924 and made one print with his wife Jetta as the subject in 1925. His first known print in 1916 was a linoleum-cut portrait of his f
...see more »ather and his last work, in 1969, was Snakes, a three-color woodcut.
He is best known for a style known as Tesselation, with artistic compositions showing impossible perceptual riddles with a jigsaw puzzle effect. His popular paradoxical works were mostly published in the 50s and 60s, although he began developing the concepts in the 1920s. His graphic artworks include 448 lithographs, woodcuts, mezzotints and wood engravings and over 2000 drawings and sketches. A multi-talented man, he also designed tapestries, postage stamps and murals, in addition to illustrating books, with his work often based in ancient Moorish mosaics. In 1998, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, celebrated the centennial of his birth with a comprehensive showing of their extensive collection of his works.
Partial listing of famous art work:
Eight Heads, 1922
Saint Francis, 1922,
Italian Town, 1930
Still Life with Spherical Mirror, 1934,
Day and Night, 1937.
Mummified Frog, 1946
Up and Down, 1947
Ascending and Descending
Relativity
Metamorphosis I, Metamorphosis II and Metamorphosis III
Sky & Water I
Reptiles
Drop, 1948
Drawing Hands, 1948 - artist depicted his own hands in the process of drawing each other to create one of his visual paradoxes.
Tetrahedral Planetoid, 1954
Print Gallery, 1956
Circle Limit III, 1959« see less
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