A few weeks ago, my family and I visited Virtual Realities: The Art of M.C. Escher from the Michael S. Sachs Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. I’ve long been a fan of M.C. Escher’s work – having, as many college kid, a couple of his works in poster format on my walls. For example:
My Husband recognized some of Escher’s work, but really enjoyed learning the whole printing process that Escher used to make his art. The exhibition does a wonderful job balancing the display for visual enjoyment with the explanation of how things were done without getting boring or tedious. Our family spent nearly two hours in the exhibition and didn’t even realize it.
My Child’s favorite part was the black-light room:
Exhibition Description
The MFAH hosts the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of works by M.C. Escher ever presented. Virtual Realities features more than 400 prints, drawings, watercolors, printed fabrics, constructed objects, wood and linoleum blocks, lithographic stones, sketchbooks, and the artist’s working tools.
Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1972), popularly referred to as M.C. Escher, was born in the Netherlands and is known internationally for his self-described “mental images,” which connect to mathematics and various branches of science. Considered a “one-man art movement,” he remained outside of the art establishment. Escher was heralded in the psychedelic era of the 1960s and 1970s and is treasured today for his mind-bending works.
Spanning Escher’s entire career, Virtual Realities is drawn from the most extensive Escher collection in the world, held by Michael S. Sachs, who acquired 90 percent of the Escher estate in 1980. The artist’s singular, sometimes unsettling works, with their orchestration of multi-dimensional alternate realities, have become icons of the 20th century. Escher’s imagery evolved from realistic observations of the world to inventions from his imagination that explore the relationships between art and science, order and disorder, and logic and irrationality. Interactive auxiliary rooms, where visitors may play with optical illusions, accompany the exhibition.
Organization Description
Established in 1900, the MFAH is the largest cultural institution in the region. The majority of the museum’s presentations take place on its main campus, which is located in the heart of Houston’s Museum District and comprises the Audrey Jones Beck Building, the Caroline Wiess Law Building, the Glassell School of Art and the Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden. The Beck and Law buildings are connected underground by the Wilson Tunnel, which features James Turrell’s iconic installation The Light Inside (1999). Additional resources include a repertory cinema, two significant libraries, public archives and a state-of-the-art conservation and storage facility. Nearby, two remarkable house museums, Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens and Rienzi, present collections of American and European decorative arts. The encyclopedic collections of the MFAH are especially strong in pre-Columbian and African gold; Renaissance and Baroque painting and sculpture; 19th- and 20th-century art; photography; and Latin American art. The MFAH is also home to the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), a leading research institute for 20th-century Latin American and Latino art.
Family Rating
4.5 stars
We had so much fun at the Easter event!
More Information and Tickets
See You Next Time!
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I am Sandy Kay 
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