Cora Trout

Cora Trout is a designer, illustrator, and writer whose work explores interior spaces and the built environment. She makes books and paintings that examine the documentary, emotional, and memorial qualities of the interior. She has an unhealthy obsession with historic interiors and chairs, and they are often the subject matter of her paintings and writing.

Trout’s most recent project is 62-page illustrated book titled Mise en Scène: Illustrating French Interiors, which combines paintings of interior spaces across Île-de-France with short writing passages that provide historical context and commentary. The book features ten different locations—from a formal ancien régime palace on the Place de la Concorde to a 1950s home in the western suburbs of Paris. Even across time periods, a certain gôut français inhabits all of these interiors. The paintings and research for this book were made possible by a two-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris (September-October 2024).

Trout earned her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2024, and her BA with majors in French and Francophone Studies and Classics from Macalester College in 2016. Her illustrated book, Looking Inside: Room Portraits of St. Louis, was the recipient of the Lewis E. Atherton Prize for an outstanding master’s thesis on Missouri history from the State Historical Society of Missouri. Her work has also been recognized by American Illustration 42. Prior to joining the faculty at Sam Fox, Trout worked as a designer and motion graphics artist in Minneapolis.