Pierre Van Parys Bourdelle (1901-1966)
Mural for Department of Justice Building to be Rendered in Fresco
American: December 3, 1935
Signed and dated in image lower right
Titled in margin lower right
Gouache and gold leaf on paper
24.25 x 19 inches, overall
19.75 x 13 inches, image
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Law and Justice Allegory
Design for Fresco
Design for Fresco
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The growth of law through human history is depicted as branches of a golden tree. Four vignettes show the evolution of justice from brute force in the prehistoric era to an allegory of hope for justice in the future, represented by a cityscape. This design of the history of justice was proposed for a fresco mural for the Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C., but apparently never executed.
Pierre Van Parys Bourdelle was the son of the eminent French sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, who mentored his own artistic career. The elder Bourdelle had worked for ten years as Rodin’s assistant early in his career, and Pierre also studied with Rodin. Although underage, he volunteered for service in World War I, sustaining injuries that led to deafness. After the war, he graduated from the Sorbonne. In 1929, he emigrated to New York, where he had a busy career as a muralist from the 1930s until 1964, producing paintings and reliefs for hotels, restaurants, cruise ships, rail terminals and railroad cars, corporations and public buildings in both the New York area and around the country. He was known for his designs for the Chrysler Building, the United States Post Office in Rockford Michigan, the huge murals in the dining room of the SS America and the Safari mural and American Eagle for the Samuel C. Stevens Library at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. A motorized rotating globe that he designed, 10 feet in diameter, was installed in 1959 at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington, DC and is now in a private collection.
References:
Radecki, Alan and Wilson, John. "Pierre Bourdelle." The Artists of the California Zephyr. 29 December 2000. http://calzephyr.railfan.net/artists/bourdelle.html (21 January 2005).
Correspondence with Peter Bourdelle, son of the artist. 2000-2003.