Escher - Museo degli Innocenti | Florence

Art. 36
20 October - 26 March 2023

The record-setting exhibition dedicated to “ESCHER” arrives in Florence from October 20. More than 200 works will be housed in a unique exhibition venue, in the spaces of the historic Museo degli Innocenti, which, thanks to the collaboration with Arthemisia, has become a landmark of the Tuscan capital as a venue for major art exhibitions.

The major exhibition dedicated to the brilliant Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher comes to the Museo degli Innocenti in Florence from October 20, 2022 to March 26, 2023.

Discovered by the general public in recent years, Escher has become one of the most beloved artists worldwide, so much so that exhibitions dedicated to him have broken all visitor records.

Escher was born in 1898 in the Netherlands and died there in 1972. In 1922 he first visited Italy, where he then lived for many years, visiting it from north to south and representing it in many of his works. Restless, reserved and undoubtedly brilliant, Escher in his famous engravings and lithographs created a unique, imaginative, impossible world where art, mathematics, science, physics and design converge.

An anthological exhibition-with about 200 works and the most representative works that have made him famous all over the world-tells the story of the Dutch artist’s genius with the most iconic works of his production such as Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935), Bond of Union (1956), Metamorphosis II (1939), Day and Night (1938) and the Emblemata series, which belong to the common imagination referable to the great artist.

The Escher exhibition is set to be the first major exhibition event inside the monumental complex-designed by Filippo Brunelleschi-that houses the marvelous and extremely rich Museo degli Innocenti, which, with Arthemisia’s signature exhibitions, is already on its way to being a venue for major art exhibitions.

Created to display the works of art from the ancient Spedale, a large children’s home, the Museum has been transformed into a pathway that allows visitors to discover a cultural heritage that is unique in the world because it is deeply linked to the work carried out in favor of children who could not be raised by their families of origin.

Between history, art, and architecture, the Museum’s collection features works acquired through donations or as a result of the amalgamation of other welfare institutions and contains a number of masterpieces by outstanding artists including Domenico Ghirlandaio, Luca and Andrea della Robbia, Sandro Botticelli, and Piero di Cosimo, as well as artists who grew up at the Innocenti and were initiated into painting by Prior Vincenzo Borghini such as Vincenzo Ulivieri, Giovan Battista Naldini, and Francesco Morandini (known as Poppi).

Under the patronage of the Municipality of Florence, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the exhibition is produced and organized by Arthemisia in collaboration with the M. C. Escher Foundation and In Your Event, and is curated by Mark Veldhuysen – CEO of the M.C. Escher Company – and Federico Giudiceandrea, one of the world’s leading Escher experts.