Students’ Voices/Students’ Work
The art of making friends at The Courtauld
‘When we enrolled in a Courtauld Summer School course on German art and politics in the Weimar Republic taught by Niccola Shearman in 2023, we expected first-class tuition and hoped for a congenial group of fellow-learners. In fact, what we found was even better! Four of us, from varying backgrounds in medicine, law, journalism and accountancy, met on that course and stayed in touch afterwards.
In 2023, inspired by the course, we took a trip to Leicester to see the large and exceptional collection of German Expressionist works there (and to enjoy a lovely dinner in an Indian restaurant!).
Then, in January 2024, three of us went to Stockholm for a retrospective of the work of Lotte Laserstein – a fascinating artist we hadn’t known about before the course – and we all found ourselves in 2024 in Niccola Shearman’s Vienna Summer School course and subsequently in her autumn Study tour to Vienna. Further events and exhibitions have followed and in short we’ve become great friends; sharing our enthusiasm for art and art history has definitely enhanced the experience for each one of us.’ – Carolyn Watson
Dr Shearman’s Vienna Study Tour in September 2025 is currently full but to be added to the waiting list please email short.courses@courtauld.ac.uk Vienna Study Tour running from 8 to 11 September 2025
Looking at Ourselves: A Historical and Practical Exploration of Portrait Photography
In the spring of 2024, we piloted a new interdisciplinary venture: an intensive four-day course that combined an in-depth look at the history and theory of portrait photography with a hands-on engagement with this vital cultural practice. This course’s success meant it ran again in the spring of 2025.
Looking at ourselves: A historical and practical exploration of portrait photography was co-written and delivered by noted photographer Alistair Morrison and art historian Dr Tim Satterthwaite. In classroom, gallery and archival sessions, students encountered photographic portraiture from its origins to the present day. This historical context then provided food for thought for their own work, which they made and curated under Alistair Morrison’s guidance.
We are grateful to Alistair and Tim for providing a stimulating and supportive learning environment in which our students’ creativity could take flight. To take part in the course, no previous experience of photography was required. While our students had varying degrees of familiarity with the medium, they have all produced accomplished and intriguing artwork, a small selection of which you can see in the galleries below.
Student Work: Looking at Ourselves 2025
Student Work: Looking at Ourselves 2024
The Courtauld Summer School's First Ever Essay Competition: 2025
In the summer of 2025, we decided to host an essay competition open to all Summer School students, and the question we put to our students was this one:
“Is studying art history like Nero fiddling while Rome Burns? In other words: What Impact does the Study of Art History have on the World Today?”
Students responded with enthusiasm, and we were able to select two runners-up and a final winner, whose entry you can read below.
Summer School Essay Competition 2025 Winner: Emily Doswell
On the 24th February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. In October the following year, Hamas-led militant groups launched an attack on Israel, in which just under 1200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed, triggering the Hamas-Israeli war. In September 2024, when famines were announced in Gaza and the Sudan, I began my A level study into History of Art. In the light of such world suffering, there is validity in questioning the relevance of such a course.
However, it is precisely in such a context that the importance of Art and the study of Art History becomes more precious. The official website of Ukraine recognises, amid the struggle that Art generated during the conflict, conveys an important message and acts as a powerful tool to help Ukrainians share their emotions and personal narrative. A series of illustrations on the site, by a 15-year-old Ukrainian girl, depicts her family; a mother, a wife, a daughter, dealing with the loss of their son, husband and father; a Ukrainian soldier, a casualty in the war. His jacket, unworn, over the back of a chair depicts for future generations the human face of the suffering. It is a conduit to understand her loss.
Over the centuries, Art has recorded human conflict and suffering. From the fractured chaos of Guernica to the impasto of Van Gogh, works that do not soothe; but act to expose frightful struggle; shared tragedy in art, acting as reminder to avoid repetition.
Even within everyday education however, this study is increasingly important. As ChatGPT degrees and AI-generated images enter public use, the need for original thought fades. It’s not just the death of art that is at risk, it’s the very act of thinking. Where any book can be summarised and any equation solved, art remains the only thing in resistance to passive consumption.
Art History teaches us to examine the visual, not just look. I am taught to confront, analyse and absorb pieces in ways that exhaust me. This act is something I am unable to cheat at. Art History is a window into power, resistance, pain, and most often, ecstatic beauty.
Studying art is equivalent to empathising, an act where you look at the world through another’s eyes and feel as they would. Even our machines analyze the past to shape their algorithms and responses, therefore it’s naive to think we can face the future without learning from those who came before us. To confront human experience and live, we must hold on to what is innately human, and since that quality is increasingly rare today, we must turn to art.