Of interest is just how many people ‘out there’ are undertaking Escher-like tessellation art. To this end, I now thus investigate. Andrew Crompton, a practising tessellation artist, from as far back as 1984, wondered about this, and indeed, placed an advert, in Private Eye, a UK satirical magazine, asking for tessellation artists to come forward. As a result of this, and his own investigations, he produced a list of 54 people up to 2010, when his active interest ceased. Latterly, Patrick Snels then continued with this in his own way, with a database of 60 artists building upon Crompton’s work, adding a few more instances of his own. Subsequently, in 2017, Francine Champagne began compiling her own listing. Negating Champagne’s work, the matter has lain undisturbed for a good few years. To this end, I have now (2017) taken it upon myself to continue and update this work with a listing of my own, and of which, pleasingly, the number of artists is increasing, considerably so, and now numbering over 100 as of this writing. However, the question arises as to work deemed fit for inclusion. This is not such a straightforward task as may otherwise be thought! People’s interest in tessellation varies, from people who have spent a lifetime in the field, to dilettantes, of just a brief interest in passing, sometimes of just a single instance as a 'one-hit wonder' (marked with an asterisk below), to hundreds, and on one occasion with over 1100 (by Yasukiyo Yoshida) and everything in between. An open question is to whether include schoolchild work; Escher-like tessellation is popular in schools, and so many young people do Escher-like tessellation, although their work is largely without merit and so of little need for an ‘official’ listing here. However, there are adults, such as Otto van Eersel, who have just the one tessellation to their name, and been published! And indeed, adults who have books with next to no understanding of the issues! Who to include therefore is not as straightforward. Indeed, at times, it is an invidious task. The criteria are of at least one work of some degree of merit or at least as judged by common consent of worth or have otherwise some degree of prominence in the field, such as with book publications. The listing below, of 121 artists, is indeed as accurate as is practical. As ever, I am open to further suggestions for artists to be added to this listing. This is really a bare minimum listing, of name, birth and country. Even so, frequently, the backgrounds details are left open-ended; some people seem to delight in obscurity! Although I could at least try and pursue some of these people, I judge the time required better spent elsewhere. Crompton gives brief background details where known. An open invitation to the artists concerned; by all means write a few lines, or more, on yourself and send me in your details. In due course, I would like to add more biographical details, perhaps separately, below the main listing. The letter 'A' after the name indicates that the artist is still active in the field up to the present day. This is not always so; typically, people have just a passing interest, and move on to other interests.

Analysis 1

Just for amusement, and nothing more really, it’s interesting to separate the artists as according to their country of origin. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the United States is the leader, with over twice the number of artists (31) over the next, the United Kingdom (15). However, unlike other countries with considerably fewer artists, there is no really outstanding work from the former. Japan (12) and the Netherlands (8) also show prominently, with perhaps surprisingly less so other major European countries, namely France (3), Germany (2), with Spain (1) and Italy (1) less so. One would have expected more. However, for France in particular (Nicolas) and Germany (Wyniger), these make up for lack of quantity with artists of true worth. Interestingly, Austria, who can be described as the pioneer of Escher-like tessellation (with works by Moser and Puchinger) has surprisingly not led to other artists from this country emerging.

Analysis 2

Also of interest is to separate the artists as according to gender. Out of 124 artists, only nine are female! Furthermore, many of these are inconsequential, of either most limited in extent, of a passing interest, of a single tessellation or of doubtful inclusion on grounds of quality (Jinny Beyer and Natalie Sirett), with only Francine Champagne and Rosa Dorenbos being the only ones with a decided interest. Where are you, female tessellators?

Created 21 March 2017, with a minor update of 29 March 2017. Updated: 14 September 2017, with a revision and expansion of the introductory text, more artists (107 as against 98), with the listing emphasised as according to initial letter, rather than a long list without such differentiation. Further, I then undertake two analyses of the data, with tables of country and gender of the artists.

2019 Additions
15 February. Makaia Torigoe and Hidekazu Nomura.
16 April. Rosa Dorenbos.
14 August. Frank-Ivo van Damme and Tony Hart.
23 August. Alec Dixon.
30 September. B-Wichmann, Haddon McKinney, Tom Gauld, Rahul Agarwal, Andy J. DuFort, Trent Call, Charles Msoga, and Kaya Erbek. 24 December. Eric Allhouse, Bonita R. Datta, Gianni A. Sarcone, Renée van den Kerkhof, Santiago a.k.a Kitten Rain.

2020 Additions 16 March. Lili ViBa, Marta Harvey, Nils Titland, David White, 'hereiamagain', 'javirams', 'mooncakedraws', 'obvian' 8 December. Claude Crépeau,
10 December. Ronald Gardner

Last updated 10 December 2020