THE HAGUE.- A first for Escher in The Palace: the contemporary work of the “British Escher” Anne Desmet is on display in the Netherlands for the first time, alongside that of her great inspiration, M.C. Escher. At a young age, Desmet became fascinated by themes such as transformation and architecture. In her room hung a poster of M.C. Escher's Day and Night, in which black and white birds fly over a Dutch landscape and gradually transform into that landscape in the centre. Years later, she learned etching, woodcutting, engraving, screen printing and lithography at the University of Oxford’s Ruskin School of Art. Winning the Lithography Prize from the Printmakers Council in London at the age of 23, followed by a Rome Scholarship, laid the foundation for her illustrious career. Like Escher, she is amazed by the world around her, and both translate this inspiration into graphic work full of depth, light and illusion. Despite the differences in eras and styles, their ideas are surprisingly similar.

An important shared starting point is Italy. For Escher, it is a second home: he lives there for years, hiking through the mountains and capturing countless villages in drawings and prints. Even after his departure, Italy remains a recurring motif in his work. Desmet's love for Italy began with her year-long study trip to Rome. She was immediately captivated by the ancient buildings and how the past is literally tangible in the stones there. Rome and other Italian cities also recur in her work.

Both artists are avid travellers. Escher writes extensively about his travels in travel diaries and sometimes draws what he sees. Anne Desmet mainly creates visual diaries and records all her travels in detail in drawings. These sketchbooks, some of which are on display in The Hague, form the basis of her artistry and are works of art in themselves. Every time she returns to England, she looks at the urban landscape of her native country with fresh eyes and captures those impressions in sketches and impressive kaleidoscopic patterns. Highlights of the exhibition include iconic buildings such as the British Museum and St. Paul's Cathedral in London, as well as the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline in New York.

Escher and Desmet share a love of wood engraving and the interplay between light and dark. Escher feels more connected to black and white than to colour. He plays with shadow and light to create depth. Anne Desmet works in a similar way. She literally cuts light out of the wood by removing certain parts, creating beautiful shadows in her prints.

Personal portraits

Making a portrait is no easy task. Artists often practise on friends and family. In this exhibition, this leads to personal portraits, such as those of the artists' fathers. Louis Desmet died when Anne Desmet was still a child, so she had to base his portrait on a photograph. Escher’s father was the subject of his very first print, and of a later work, made in 1935, as an elderly man peering through a magnifying glass. They were very close, and George Arnold Escher remained involved with his son and his work throughout his life.

Producing a portrait of a stranger can be more difficult, even uncomfortable, as Escher himself described: ‘Psychologically I find it too difficult to make portraits. A chap sitting there in front of you, that’s much too disruptive for me. I have only made a few portraits of myself in the mirror. People easily confuse me.’ Escher therefore made few portraits during his career, apart from a number of self-portraits. Anne Desmet is less reluctant to depict people in her prints, and is interested in capturing personality and emotion in her portraits.

Chaos and order

Both artists enjoy literally turning reality upside down. Escher does this with impossible buildings and optical illusions, leaving the viewer wondering: is this actually possible? Desmet does something similar with her collages: she combines old and modern buildings, places them in unexpected perspectives and thus creates new cities. And while Escher's work sometimes seems complex and confusing, there is always a hidden structure to it. Desmet explores the same thing in her kaleidoscopic work, in which she cuts up old prints and turns them into new patterns. At first glance, everything seems messy, but it turns out to be surprisingly orderly.

In short: Escher and Desmet both view the world with a curious, inquiring eye. They draw inspiration from travel, history and architecture, and their graphic techniques enable them to strike a remarkable balance between reality and imagination, order and confusion, light and dark. Although they never had the opportunity to meet, on paper they understand each other perfectly. Anne Desmet: ‘Our work consists largely of mastering the craft, which requires hard work and a lot of patience. Now that I sometimes use digital techniques for my collages, I am amazed that Escher created all his kaleidoscopic patterns by hand in his day; he did not have those new techniques. What he did remains so impressive.’

Publication

Coinciding with the exhibition, Anne Desmet's new English-language book Wood Engraving – A Personal Approach will be published, featuring over 300 images of her work.