Black Panther Courtroom Sketches

October 13, 2009

From the The Black Panthers Trial: Courtroom Sketches by Robert Templeton

CBS News commissioned Connecticut sketch artist and painter Robert Templeton to produce several large drawings of the trial to broadcast on the television news. Templeton made small pastel sketches from life in the courtroom and prepared larger drawings from these sketches in a helicopter on his way to New York City. Because the courtroom was closed to artists and photographers, Templetons sketches were made surreptitiously, without the permission of the court; his drawings are, perhaps, the only visual record of the courtroom during this critical case. The collection includes small preliminary notebook sketches made in the courtroom as well as larger, finished drawings later displayed on CBS news broadcasts. Defendants Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins, Prosecutor Arnold Markle, and Judge Harold Mulvey are among the subjects represented. source