Exceptional, but also logical: Christie’s auctions sixty works by Escher in New York

It is highly exceptional: an auction in New York with only work by one Dutch artist. Christie’s does it. The originally British auction house organizes an online auction with sixty prints and drawings by MC Escher (1898-1972), the Frisian graphic artist known for his detailed imaginations of infinity and impossible spatial constructions from 8 to 22 July.

It is about the collection of Robert Owen Lehman Jr., an 88-year-old American filmmaker who won two Oscars with natural documentaries in the 1970s. The filmmaker collected rare magazines graph from Escher for almost half a century and also many drawings and preliminary studies.

The first auction shot shows a bearded, seriously looking Escher, a self -portrait drawn with pencil from around 1929. A series of landscape drawings from Italy dates from the same period, most are preliminary studies for lithographs. Lehman also collected four preliminary studies for the well -known print on which ants run over a so -called Möbius band, a mathematical construction.

Special auction

Judith Kadee, curator at Escher in the Palace, the Esconuseum opened in 2002 in the former Lange Voorhout Palace in The Hague (150,000 visitors last year), speaks of a special auction. “Rarely do you see so many drawings and preliminary studies being offered.”

According to Kadee, the preliminary studies, which sometimes differ greatly from the final prints, provide insight into Escher’s working method. She points to one preliminary study for Belvedere (1958), The well -known print of an architecturally impossible construction for a vantage point. “The study is much rougher than the print. Escher then tweaked a lot to the building. Step by step, with sometimes ten to twenty preliminary studies, he came to his polished end results.”

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The auction catalog shows that Lehman was a customer of Michael Sachs, an American collector and trader who bought hundreds of drawings and prints from the heirs of Escher in 1980. Until then, these works were on loan at the Gemeentemuseum, now the Kunstmuseum The Hague. In 1980 the artist’s estate was split. The museum had the first choice, now the basis for Escher in the palace, Sachs bought the rest. KADEE: “Escher was less famous at the time than now. Sachs entered at the right time and at the time acquired a huge Escher collection in Bulk.”

The curator is not surprised that Christie’s organizes this auction and the accompanying viewing days in New York. She also points to the impact of the huge Escher exhibition of the Michael Sachs collectionin 2022 in the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Americans are receptive to Eschers boundless fantasy, says Kadee. “He is in the US Larger Than Lifemuch bigger than here. ” As usual at auctions, Kadee does not comment in advance about the possible interest of her museum in the works.

In science circles and in the computer chart world, Escher with his mathematical starting points is known as a pioneer. In recent years, the auction income for his work increased enormously. The Zeeuws Veilinghuis recently offered about a hundred prints. With regular spectacular results. An unhealed copy of the litho Drawing hands (1948) was remarked a year and a half ago at 200,000 euros, four times the highest target price.

Work of love

Robert Lehman is not available for an interview. In one press release Of the auction house, the very old American calls his collection “a work of love”, which he now enjoys passing on to other collectors. He also thanks Escher: “I will be eternally grateful to the Dutch Homo Universalis for the joy and fascination that he has brought me and my family over the years.”

The proceeds from the sale go to a foundation for classical music founded by Lehman. A reasoned choice, says the collector. “Since Escher was just as passionate about music as I, I trust that he would agree.”

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