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Step Into The Impossible Mc Escher Arrives At Somerset House
The exhibition of M.C. Escher at Somerset House highlights the enduring impact of his intricate and mind-bending artworks on contemporary culture. For brand strategy, this underscores the importance of storytelling and immersive experiences in engaging audiences, as well as the value of historical and artistic authenticity in building a brand's identity.
Creative Boom: News Sponsored Step Into the Impossible: M.C. Escher arrives at Somerset House Before the famous optical illusions and infinite worlds, there were humble tools and a very patient hand. This summer, Somerset House gathers over 150 of Escher's prints for his first major London exhibition, and there's a chance to immerse yourself in a few of those worlds. Written By: Katy Cowan 5 June 2026 Installation View – M.C.Escher The Exhibition, Somerset House 2026. Photo: Stephen Chung We all know an Escher when we see one. The staircase that climbs forever and gets frustratingly nowhere. The hand drawing the hand that's drawing it.
The shoal of fish that turns, tile by tile, into a flock of birds. His work has seeped so far into culture – onto album covers, into comic books, across that famous endless stairway in Labyrinth and into games like Monument Valley – that you've almost certainly fallen down one of his impossible worlds without knowing whose it was. Which is fitting, really: for most of his life, the art world overlooked Escher, even in his home country, the Netherlands. He was 70 before he got a proper retrospective. The crowds came later, and they haven't stopped since.
From today, you can meet the originals, step inside some of them and trace the entire journey from the Dutch artist's early Italian landscapes when he was just getting started, through to the tessellations he worked out by hand after a trip to the Alhambra, to the mind-bending paradoxes that made his name. M.C. Escher. The Exhibition at Somerset House opens at a moment when machines can conjure an image in seconds, so there's something genuinely humbling about remembering that every one of these artworks was cut by a human hand, on a woodblock or a copper plate, by one extraordinarily patient person.
The wonder was never just how is this possible… It's that somebody actually made it. M.C. Escher Day and Night, 1938. M.C. Escher Heritage Collection, The Netherlands All M.C. Escher works © 2026 The M.C.
The exhibition emphasizes the significance of storytelling and immersive experiences in branding, making it relevant for brand strategy professionals, while the connection to Escher's work offers a unique perspective on artistic authenticity.