CoM | Mathematics and the Art of M.C. Escher

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Monday, September 21, 2026
 – Live Presentation with
Doris Schattschneider –

Session at 12 Noon Atlanta time
(check your time here)

Please join us starting 10 minutes before this session using the following button.

CoM Zoom Event

For published CoM presentations please visit the G4G YouTube channel

After this virtual CoM presentation on Zoom, we will meet for an informal social session in a different Zoom space where we can all see each other (see the blue button below).  That Zoom meeting will start around 1pm ET.

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ZOOM Social Meeting

Mathematics and the Art of M.C. Escher

My title is also the title of an art exhibition of original Escher works at the Museum of Mathematics (MoMath) in New York City that runs from October 1 to February 8, 2026.  I note that in the 1960s, Martin Gardner was instrumental in making Escher’s work known to the mathematical and scientific world.   This unique exhibition at MoMath was curated to reveal the many connections of mathematics with Escher’s artwork; some are obvious, others more subtle.  I’ll discuss details of the exhibition, its unique catalog, and the mathematical connections.

Doris Schattschneider
Doris Schattschneider holds a Ph. D. in mathematics from Yale University and is Professor Emerita of Mathematics at Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where she taught for 34 years.  She is known for her work in discrete geometry and tilings. She has written and lectured extensively about the work of the Dutch artist M.C. Escher, and also the amateur mathematician Marjorie Rice,serving as her “Boswell.”  She is author of the book M.C. Escher: Visions of Symmetry and article “The Mathematical Side of M.C. Escher” (Notices of the American Mathematical Society) that document how Escher used mathematics, represented abstract mathematical ideas, and performed mathematical investigations. Currently an associate editor of the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, she also serves on the advisory committee of the National Museum of Mathematics in Manhattan, NY.  She is a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and  has been active in the Mathematics Association of America (MAA) at all levels, serving as editor of Mathematics Magazine 1981–1985.  In 1993 she received the national MAA Award for Distinguished Teaching of College or University Mathematics. 

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