Brushstrokes Around the Bench

The art world isn’t limited to museums and galleries anymore, with pieces now embedded in courthouses across the country — from the majestic marble palace of the U.S. Supreme Court to landscapes urging conversations about climate change at the Byron White U.S. Courthouse in Denver.  

How did we move away from serious images of Lady Justice and authoritative judges clad in black robes to swaths of color and happy trees? How did art get into the judicial system to begin with?

In our penultimate episode this season, we bring you the artists who capture vivid portraits that honor state justices and attorneys not often memorialized in art and how courtroom sketches transcend photography to paint a picture of a defendant up close and personal or document moments of social change.

Special guests:

• Roger Laux Nelson, a landscape artist with works in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals
• Ximena Velázquez-Arenas, an artist and attorney
• Ted Ellis, an artist and director of Florida State University’s Civil Rights Institute 
• Jennifer Gibson, director of the Center for Fine Arts at the General Services Administration
• Drew Alderson, manager of the Colorado Judicial Learning Center
• Joan Kee, director of the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University
• Vicki Behringer, a courtroom sketch artist

This episode was produced by Kirk McDaniel. Intro music by The Dead Pens.

Editorial staff is Ryan Abbott, Sean Duffy and Jamie Ross.