The Dutch artist Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898–1972) was a draftsman, book illustrator, tapestry designer, and muralist, but his primary work was as a printmaker. Born in Leeuwarden, Holland, the son of a civil engineer, Escher spent most of his childhood in Arnhem. Aspiring to be an architect, Escher enrolled in the School for Architecture and Decorative Arts in Haarlem. While studying there from 1919 to 1922, his emphasis shifted from architecture to drawing and printmaking upon the encouragement of his teacher Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita. In 1924 Escher married Jetta Umiker, and the couple settled in Rome to raise a family. They resided in Italy until 1935, when growing political turmoil forced them to move first to Switzerland, then to Belgium. In 1941, with World War II under way and German troops occupying Brussels, Escher returned to Holland and settled in Baarn, where he lived and worked until shortly before his death.

Escher was an individual artist. He incorporated the fantasy of Monet, the logic and precision of Michaelangelo, the perspective and three-dimensional vision of Wright, and the patterns of the Moors, into his own woodcuts, lithographs, and drawings. He created impossible worlds and outlandish creatures. His inspiration, the Moors of Alhambra, Spain, lead him to create wonderful tesselations of people, animals, and geometric shapes.