With The Courtauld’s three-year refurbishment complete and Gallery now reopened, another exciting change includes the Visitor Experience team’s new uniform – the result of a design competition for Courtauld students won by Catherine (Cat) Dussault, who is currently studying for her PGDip in the Conservation of Easel Paintings. Cat first found out about the competition through the incoming student network over the summer, and she immediately got to work sketching out ideas in Procreate.
“In conceptualizing a design I wanted to evoke the joy of museum visiting. The playful, inspired feeling that always has me pulling out a sketchbook to doodle my own versions of the masterworks I see. I chose a continuous, single-line illustration style – a loose and organic but self-aware hand that would pay tribute to some of the classic works in The Courtauld collection while maintaining its own unique bent.”
– Cat Dussault
The single-line illustration on the reverse of the uniform is a modern, minimalist take on some of The Courtauld’s much-loved highlights – Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, Gauguin’s Nevermore, Cranach’s Adam and Eve, and Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear, but the intriguing details of these works are not lost.
Cat explains where her idea of layering came from:
“The symmetry of form and shape that disparate works share, as a way to speak to the concepts of cohesion and transformation which for me lie at the heart of the enjoyment of art as a viewer.”
Cat’s canvas for the uniform, a powder blue from The Courtauld’s signature palette, matches The Courtauld’s Shop’s products and tissue paper’s uplifting shades of pastel, which brighten the atmospheric lighting and rustic brickwork of the shop space in the lower ground floor Vaults: “My color scheme was created from The Courtauld’s branding guidelines, with the goal of being modern and expressive – a nod to the reopening and revitalization of this historic space and collection.”
When you next visit The Courtauld, keep a look out for this fantastic uniform which can be seen on our friendly Visitor Experience team in the Gallery and Courtauld Shop!
