Changes to Chesco courtroom mural elusive to track
WEST CHESTER — Courtrooms are often the place where mysteries are solved — the “whodunits” of Perry Mason dramas, for example. The truth comes finally, dramatically to light as evidence is produced and memories are unearthed.
But not so the question of the composition of famed Chester County illustrator Edward’s Shenton’s mural “Justice in Chester County,” which had been commissioned for installation in a new annex for the county’s Orphan’s Court in 1956 and which was last year restored and removed to its current location in Courtroom Two of the county Justice Center. At least not yet. Senior Judge Thomas Gavin, at whose insistence the mural was rescued from possible demolition after the county sold the courthouse complex to a local developer, had noticed that several changes were made from the original demonstration painting that Shenton had submitted to a design committee and his eventual finished mural.
From one to another, a farmer loses a hatchet and gains a hay fork and scythe; a Indian’s hair becomes a Mohawk; an apple orchard grows out of nowhere; a church appears in the shadow of the Welsh mountains of western Chester County; and, most curiously, a covered bridge over the West Fork of the Brandywine Creek trades places with a stone bridge over the East Fork.
On Friday, Gavin invited the artist’s son, Edward “Ned” Shenton, to view the mural in its new location and possibly help explain why the changes were made. Were they part of collaboration by members of the county committee chosen to oversee the mural’s completion — many of whom were artists themselves — or just artistic inspiration by Shenton when he painted the mural on the wall of what became Courtroom Five in the Historic Courthouse complex, Gavin asked?
Unfortunately, the younger Shenton, now in his 80s, could offer no help.
“I wish I knew,” Shenton said during his visit to Gavin’s courtroom. “I have no idea.”
Shenton said his father, a professional illustrator who worked with book publishers on novels like “The Yearling,” “Tender is the Night” and “The Green Hills of Africa” was not above using suggestions from others in his work. “I think if someone had a good reason he might have changed things,” Shenton told Gavin during a lively session dedicated to the “Justice” mural. “But how will we ever know?”
Gavin said county researchers had been able to unearth no contemporaneous documents noting the discussions about the final version of the mural. The Chester County Historical Society, he said, had mountains of information about Edward Shenton and his work, but missing were minutes of the committee’s meeting to discuss the project with him.
Ned Shenton was not surprised. “He kept so little and gave away so much,” he said of his father, who died in 1977. “That’s the way he was.”
The visit on Friday came about as Ned Shenton and his wife, Ellie, travelled from their home in Lexington, Mass., to joining with members of a literary fan club dedicated to the late author and columnist Gladys Taber, who published a series of novels known as the “Stillmeadow” series. The group assembles annually in places that have some connection to Taber. Shenton, it appears, had illustrated some of Taber’s books, likely at the behest of his wife, Barbara Webster, who was Taber’s close friend. For a longer version of this story,
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