We can't help but wonder if the spirit of the world's most famous surrealist master has enjoyed sharing the spotlight so often.
After exhibiting works by Warhol, Picasso, DaVinci, the Dalí Museum is bringing in a guest star in again. The museum will open Escher at the Dalí on Aug. 22.
The show will highlight M.C. Escher, who is not only a favorite of head shops and novelty boutiques — and a renowned artist, whose works are known for their puzzles, visual illusions and “impossible constructions” — and his use of tessellation. The exhibit will run through Jan 3, just before the opening of Disney & Dali: Architects of the Imagination.
On loan from the Herakleidon Museum in Athens, Greece, the exhibition will feature 135 works covering Escher’s entire artistic career, including famous works such as “Drawing Hands,” “Reptiles” and “Waterfall,” and rarely exhibited early drawings of family members, panoramas of exotic landscapes and historic architecture of Italy and Spain, original preparatory sketches, mezzotints and more.
“Escher, like Dalí, played in a serious way with that fundamental question of visual art – What is real? Is the world as it looks to be, or have I constructed an illusion in my mind? Escher delights every viewer with his visual sleights of hand,” said Hank Hine, Dalí Museum Executive Director, in the museum's press release.
Prints, drawings, a sculpture, wood blocks, a lithograph stone and posters, drawn by the artist to explain his printing techniques, will be on display. Expect an enlightening exploration of infinity through tessellation, in which shapes fit together perfectly without overlapping, including an enormous woodcut “Metamorphosis” (1939-40). The work spans 13-1/2 feet.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2015.