Roesselet and a team of fellow artisans have been at work since early June inside Washington Hall, the University’s 143-year-old campus auditorium. The major renovation is scheduled to be completed in October.

The project is recreating many of the elaborate details that were added inside the auditorium in 1894 by Luigi Gregori and Louis Rusca, the artists who also decorated the interior of the Main Building and Sacred Heart Basilica.

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During the summer of the library project, Roesselet visited the campus bookstore and saw a copy of The University of Notre Dame: A Portrait of Its History and Campus, the 1976 campus history by the late professor Thomas J. Schereth ’63.

There, on page 102, was a black-and-white circa 1895 photograph showing the ornately decorated interior of Washington Hall. (That photo became the foundation for this year’s renovation project.)

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Early this year, Roesselet started chipping away at the layers of paint inside Washington Hall. That’s when he discovered that most of the luminous 1890s artwork was there underneath. He and his team have been exposing and recreating it during the renovation.

He says the trompe l’oeil work he’s uncovered in Washington Hall (and during an earlier renovation of the Main Building) is among the best he’s seen in his career. Most of it was the work of Louis Rusca, a Swiss-Italian artist — who signed his work in painted script just to the left side of the Washington Hall stage: “Dec(orated) by L. Rusca, A.D. 1894.”

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To Roesselet, the renovated auditorium is a symbol of hope both from the past and for the future. People should view it as a sign “that we should continue to support the arts today, in all their manifestations, both visual and performing.”