Brauer Museum Features Original Escher

VALPARAISO, Ind. – An iconic work by world-famous graphic artist M.C. Escher has been donated to the permanent collection of Valparaiso University’s Brauer Museum of Art and will be displayed this summer.

Escher’s “Mosaic II,” created in 1957, was donated by Jay Christopher (a 1967 graduate of Valparaiso and member of its Board of Directors) and his wife Doris Christopher. The lithograph depicts an irregularly filled surface containing images of a frog, guitar, birds, lizards, fish and other creatures.

Gregg Hertzlieb, director of Brauer Museum, said “Mosaic II” has regularly been reproduced on items such as ties, posters and mouse keypads in the decades since it was created.

“This is one of Escher’s more iconic images,” Hertzlieb said. “It’s interesting to see how this image exists in the realm of mechanical reproduction. Art exists within the marketplace and popular culture, and Escher was perhaps the artist where this notion became very apparent and acceptable.

Even though Escher’s impossible structures and shape-shifting patterns are well known through their reproductions, Hertzlieb noted that most people never have seen the artist’s original works.

Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972): Mosaic II, 1957

Lithograph on paper, gift of Jay and Doris Christopher

“Seeing ‘Mosaic II’ at Brauer Museum will be an opportunity for people to think about whether looking at an original work of art is different from seeing a reproduction,” Hertzlieb said. 

Admission to Brauer Museum, located in the VU Center for the Arts, is always free. Summer museum hours begin May 20 and are noon to 5 p.m.

Tuesdays through Sundays; the museum will be closed July 4. More information about Brauer Museum is available on the Web at www.valpo.edu/artmuseum.

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