Maurits Escher himself tried his hand at commercial assignments in 1933, making designs for wrapping paper, but he never created a single poster. Instead, his great-nephew Gielijn Escher achieved incredible success in the realm of posters as his grandfather, Jac. Jongert did before him.

The distinctive feature of the work of the Escher family lies in illusion as a main visual method, and this is exactly what we are going to show in the exposition. The exhibition at the Design Museum Dedel will be the first to talk about Escher, not through the works of Maurits Escher, but through the lesser-known, but no less important, work of his family.

The viewer will also be amazed to see the unique works of graphic design by Maurits Escher’s teachers at the Haarlem School of Architecture like Karel de Bazel, which undoubtedly influenced the personal style of the young Maurits. Some woodcuts by the teacher who had the greatest influence on Escher - Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita - will also be presented.

However, we do not limit the exhibition project exclusively to the works of the Escher family, but also show the “graphic trickery” other designers used to play with the viewers minds.

With this exhibition, we aim to summarize the year 2023 as a year dedicated to the work of Maurits Escher, but also to open such questions as:

• What actually is an illusion?
• How does illusion work in art, and how does it work in advertising?
• Why are visual illusions so popular in graphic design and how do they affect the viewer?