Courthouse murals go up 70 years late

NEWARK, N.J., May 14 (UPI) -- Seventy years after a federal judge declared two murals too controversial for his New Jersey courtroom, copies of the banished artworks have been installed.

The murals by New Jersey artist Tanner Clark were meant to suggest the importance of federal courts in protecting children, with one showing kids playing basketball and the other a child injured in an industrial accident, The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., reported. U.S. District Judge Guy Fake feared that the murals might influence juries.

The murals are long gone. Clark's son, Caleb, said that they were left behind by mistake when his family moved years ago.

But two years ago, the historical society at the courthouse found good photographs in the National Archives and hired two artists to reproduce them as exactly as possible.

"People joke that the wheels of justice turn slowly. This is the perfect example of that," said Michael Weinstein, a lawyer who heads the historical society's art committee.

Tanner Clark, who died in 1997, always regretted that the murals weren't hung as intended, Caleb Clark told The Star-Ledger.

"He put two years of his life into them and really was torn up when they didn't get accepted," he said.