Joris Escher relates the artist’s life-metamorphosis through the eyes of his uncle in four successive parts: his youth (Becoming Mauk), his art education as a young adult (Becoming a Graphic Artist), his happiest years in Italy (Becoming an Atist) and finally, already in his late thirties, the transformation that leads to his spatial experiments (Becoming Escher). The author relates this journey from the known facts of primary sources (letters, diaries, family albums).
Joris Escher was born in Amsterdam as the youngest child of a publisher and an English teacher. He grew up living with his parents and two sisters in the town of Laren, some 20 miles from Amsterdam, where his great-uncle M.C. Escher spent the last years of his life.