MOSCOW.- Moscow Museum of Modern Art presents a solo exhibition of Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), one of the key figures in the art of the XX century.

The exhibition occupies the 2nd floor of the MMOMA’s main building at 25 Petrovka Street and it contains more than 100 artworks. Among them there are lithographs, woodcut and linocuts of the artist’s different periods. The show also presents archival photos and films from collections of the M.C. Escher Foundation in the Netherlands.

Escher’s oeuvre can be divided into three periods. The main part of the artworks belongs to the Italian period which is based on landscapes, images of insects and plants, created during Escher’s tours of Italy, Corsica and Malta. The next part of the works belongs to the Dutch period. It was the peak of his powers, when he created the most celebrated artworks. Viewers can also enjoy works of Escher’s early period and his first printed edition titled St. Francis (1922), where motives, typical for his late art, have appeared.

It is believed that Escher’s prints have influenced upon the modern design and animation. First of all Escher is known for his surrealistic lithographs, steal engravings and wood cuts. He researched plastic aspects of the infinity and symmetry, as well as peculiarities of the psychological perception of complex 3D objects and impossible figures. Charmed by the impossible figures and paradoxes in nature, Escher got ideas from non-Euclidean geometry, interpreted laws of mathematical articles and continued to explore forms and spaces in his oeuvre with the help of optical illusions.

Despite Escher is a world-famed artist, his exhibition in Russia has been held only once in the Hermitage Museum. The show in Moscow Museum of Modern Art will help to admire Escher’s most distinguished artworks and to look at his works from the inside thanks to the archival materials. The exhibition Escher will become one of the most important events on Moscow art scene and the key event within the Netherlands-Russia Year 2013.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, containing the exhibited works.

The M.C. Escher Foundation was created by the artist in 1968, four years before his death. Today the Foundation continues to organize the artist’s exhibitions, to publish books and films about his life and oeuvre.

Andrey Tolstoy (born 1956, in Moscow) is a Russian art historian, PhD of Art History, a full member of the Russian Academy of Arts, a member of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Arts. A former Deputy Director for Scientific Activities in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (Moscow). An expert on the Russian and European painting of the 20thcentury, on fine arts of the Russian emigrants. A professor of the Moscow Architectural Institute. A professor of the Institute of European Cultures of the Russian State University for the Humanities. A leading researcher of the Research Institute of Theory and History of Art.