Print Gallery (b./k./l./w. 410)
A young man stands in a print gallery, gazing at a coastal townscape displayed on the wall, which gradually expands and curves back upon itself to encompass the very gallery in which he stands. Escher masterfully employs a impossible spiral grid distortion that causes the image to loop infinitely, blurring the boundaries between the artwork, the viewer, and reality itself. This celebrated lithograph stands as one of Escher's most complex explorations of self-reference and recursive space, leaving a enigmatic blank circle at its center where the mathematical transformation breaks down.
- Medium
- PRINT GALLERY (B./K./L./W. 410)
- Location
- Sotheby's, New York, NY
- Spotted At
- Auction House · Sotheby'sView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Prints & Multiples Day Sale
April 30, 2019
Estimate: $18,000 to $24,000
Lot 96
Artists in conversation
René Magritte
Belgian · b. 1898
Magritte similarly constructed self-referential painted realities where images contain themselves recursively, such as paintings depicting easels showing the very scene behind them, creating the same impossible loop between observer and observed that defines this Escher lithograph.
Hendrik Werkman
Dutch · b. 1882
As a fellow Dutch printmaker working in monochrome geometric compositions, Werkman explored spatial distortion and typographic grid structures in his lithographic works that share the mathematical underpinning and flat tonal draftsmanship visible in this recursive townscape print.
Jos de Mey
Belgian · b. 1928
De Mey created precisely rendered architectural impossible worlds in which structures loop back upon themselves and defy spatial logic, directly echoing the recursive spiral grid distortion and self-containing infinite space that Escher achieves in this print.
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