Record-breaking Escher show at Naples' PAN museum

(ANSA) - Naples, November 2 - The record-breaking exhibition Escher, with more than 200 works by the visionary Dutch artist, opened at Naples' Palazzo delle Arti (PAN) museum on Thursday and will run through April 22, 2019.
    Some of the artist's most iconic works are on display, including Relativity (1953), Bond of Union (1956), Metamorphosis II (1939), and Day and Night (1938), as well a selection of works he completed during a tour along the Amalfi Coast to Ravello in spring 1923, on display for the first time.
    Escher Foundation President and exhibition co-curator Mark Veldhuysen said the show's stop in Naples is like "bringing Escher back home".
    "Southern Italy was his home, and even when he left Italy in 1934, we can say that he never abandoned this country, just as Italy never forgot Escher," Veldhuysen said.
    Escher's journey in Italy deeply changed him on a personal level, and in Campania he met his wife Jetta Umiker.
    He returned many times to Italy, and the show includes 15 prints inspired by his time along the Amalfi Coast and the surrounding areas, including Ravello, Scala, Positano, Praiano and Conca dei Marini.
    Southern Italy is where Escher developed many of the ideas that characterise his work as a synthesis between science and art.
    The exhibition is divided into eight sections: Mauritis Cornelis Escher: The Beginnings; Escher, Italy and Campania; Tessellation; Structure of Space; Metamorphosis; Geometric Paradoxes; Work on Commission; and Eschermania. The various sections also contain games and interactive experiences where visitors can enter the world of Escher and its paradoxes of perspective, geometry and composition.
    Co-curator Federico Giudiceandrea called Escher "the artist of the paradox".
    Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris took part in the exhibition's presentation and said the exhibition is "another large international show that the city is hosting with pride".
    "Once again we are putting culture at the heart of the city's redemption," he said.
    The exhibition is sponsored by the City of Naples' Department of Culture and is produced and organised by the Arthemisia Group in collaboration with the M. C. Escher Foundation.