One of the world’s greatest Artists,  Maurits Cornelis Escher was born in 1898 in Leeuwarden, Holland.  In his youth he enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem.  He developed a knack for graphic art, as he had shown his drawings and linoleum cuts to his graphic teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita, who encouraged him to continue with graphic arts. After finishing school,  he settled in Rome,  and for 11 years traveled extensively throughout Italy drawing and sketching for the various prints he would make when he returned home.  He would use the sketches for various other lithographs and wood engravings.  He was also fascinated by the regular division of the plane when he visited a 14th century Moorish castle,  the Alhambra, in Grandia, Spain.  He would extend his passion for the regular division of the plane, by using some of his drawings as the basis for yet another hobby, carving beech wood spheres.  During his 11 year stay in Italy he made many study tours, visiting Abruzzia, the Amalfi coast, Calabria, Sicily, Corsica and Spain. In 1934 he left Italy, spent two years in Switzerland and five years in Brussels before settling in Baarn. He also illustrated books,  designed tapestries,  postage stamps and murals.  He is most famous for his so called impossible structures, such as Relativity,  Ascending and Descending, his Transformation Prints, such as Metamorphosis 1,2 and 3. In his lifetime he made 448 lithographs, woodcuts and wood engravings and over 2000 drawings and sketches.  His optical illusions continue to dazzle and amaze millions of people the world over. (bio by: Soorus)