You may not have heard of the name Escher, but surely you have seen the hyper-realistic picture of two hands drawing each other, of lizards crawling out of a piece of a paper, or a patterned picture of fish and birds fitting exactly into each other. For the first time in Korea, the Sejong Museum of Art in central Seoul will hold a special exhibition of M.C. Escher until Oct. 15, featuring some 130 pieces of Escher’s most famous works.

Born the youngest child of a civil engineer in the Netherlands in 1898, Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972) studied architecture at Haarlem College in 1919, soon after discovering his interest in graphic arts. He began his artistic career in 1922 depicting landscapes of Italian coastal cities that he interpreted in unrealistic perspectives, mostly on woodcuts or in black-and-white drawings.

Even in his early works which are on display in Hall 1, visitors can sense Escher’s interest in the geometrical features that make up the Mediterranean landscape. 

Escher’s most famous works were, however, inspired by his visit to the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain where he encountered the colorful Arabesque patterns of the palace walls.  ... To provide visitors with a real-life experience of Escher’s graphic arts, the museum created a mirror room with a tessellation carpet that makes the patterns expand into a never-ending horizon. Videos are played in the parts of the exhibition to give a more detailed explanation and simulation of the artist’s mathematical world. The exhibition will run daily until it closes in the fall.