Escher copyright acquired by collectors Giudiceandrea and Iaquinta

Collectors Federico Giudiceandrea and Salvatore Iaquinta have acquired the intellectual property rights to the works of M.C. Escher (Leeuwarden, 1898 – Hilversum, 1972), along with ownership of the Escher company in the Netherlands and a significant collection of artworks, personal letters, unique objects, and documents. The new owners aim to make Escher's work more accessible to a wider audience through collaborations with museums and cultural institutions worldwide, leveraging new technologies for immersive and multimedia projects. Initially appreciated by mathematicians and crystallographers, Escher gained popularity for his optical illusions, impossible buildings, distorted perspectives, and tessellations, which have been used in advertising, fashion, film, and music. His primary media were woodcuts and lithographs, but also linocuts and mezzotints. Iaquinta (from San Rafael, California) is a surgeon, and Giudiceandrea (from Bressanone) is an engineer. Giudiceandrea is co-curator, with Mark Veldhuysen, of a major retrospective at Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome celebrating the centenary of Escher's arrival in the Italian capital, where two of his three children were born and where he lived until 1935. The new owners intend to deepen knowledge of Escher's life and work, involving more computer scientists and engineers in exhibitions using augmented reality and multimedia interactivity.