M.C. Escher : Portfolio

Publisher: This Taschen Portfolio presents 14 stunning full color frame-able prints by M.C. Escher. No artist ever worked harder to render the visions of his mind's eye than M.C. Escher. The visions themselves were remarkable enough: for Escher, the skin of the visible world was nothing more than a piece of cloth that could be cut, folded, shaped and rearranged in marvelous ways. A superb draftsman, he set himself the challenge of portraying these otherworldly transformations of space within the familiar borders established by a sheet of paper. The resulting images have become the favorite artworks of tens of thousands of viewers around the world. From 1919 to1922 Escher studied at the School of Architecture and Ornamental Design in Haarlem and was instructed in graphic techniques by S. Jessurun de Mesquita, a strong personality who greatly influences Escher's further artistic development. In 1922 he went to Italy and settled in Rome in 1924. During his ten-year stay in Italy, he made many study tours, visiting Abruzzia, the Amalfi coast, Calabria, Sicily, Corsica, and Spain. In 1934 he left Italy and spent two years in Switzerland and five years in Brussels, before moving back to Baarn in Holland.