Illustrating Justice

I had the privilege of working with Shirley Henderson in curating Illustrating Justice, an exhibition of courtroom drawings that spans her thirty years of work in this field. You may recognize her work from nightly network news broadcasts and newspapers; that is because media outlets commission her to go into federal courtrooms and sketch scenes that cameras, by law, are not allowed to capture.

Henderson was incredibly interesting to work with because she knows so many of the individuals who make justice work in Miami, as well as a number of those who have passed through the justice system. While we were working to choose the 93 pieces that are on display in Illustrating Justice, she told me some of her stories about folks like Alcee Hastings, Ted Bundy, Yahweh Ben Yahweh, Raul Martinez, and Alex Daoud.

Illustrating Justice: The Courtroom Art of Shirley Henderson will be on display at the Historical Museum of Southern Florida until June 20, 2010. There you can see her work and learn more about the process of creating them. If you’d like to hear some of those stories straight from Ms. Henderson herself, you can do so on June 17. She will be talking about her experiences as part of HMSF’s Explore History & Culture Series from 6:30 to 8:30.

-- Robert Harkins, Assistant Curator, Object Collections