The 19th JDC Courthouse is becoming the home for several important pieces of local art. The primary piece is found on the 11th floor and was installed during construction of the courthouse in 2011.

Conrad Albrizio (1894 1973) is best known for the murals he created for public buildings throughout Louisiana, many of which were commissioned during the Great Depression. At that time, the burgeoning political mural movement in Mexico, expedited by artists Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, and a renewed interest in the Old Masters inspired the revival of public art in the United States.

In 1954, the State of Louisiana commissioned this mural for the wall of the Louisiana State Capitol that contains bullet holes from the 1935 assassination of Governor Huey P. Long. The mural was never installed due to Governor Earl K. Long’s objections to covering evidence of his brother’s assassination. Eventually completed in 1957, the mural was installed in the Louisiana State Supreme Court building in New Orleans. Damaged by Hurricane Katrina, it was removed in 2008 when the building was demolished. The State of Louisiana ordered the mural’s conservation and in 2011 had it installed on the 11th floor of the 19th Judicial District Court building.

Composed of thousands of fragile, handplaced glass pieces produced in the famous mosaic glassworks of Venice, the mural represents the elements of government, described by Albrizio as “divine inspiration, enlightened man, and force." At the top of the composition are the scales of justice andthe Old Testament tablets of Moses embellished with a Judaic star. Below is a progression of historical figures representative of various forms of law and government. From far left: the philosophy of the Greeks, Roman law, the medieval state, Hammurabis Code of law, and the Napoleonic Code. The tall female figure in white personifies Louisiana law shown guarding a new generation.

Born in New York City, Conrad Albrizio first came to Louisiana in 1919 to work as an architectural designer in New Orleans, where he eventually settled in 1925. He received his first major mural commission in 1932 for the new state capitol building in Baton Rouge. Four years later he moved to Baton Rouge to join the faculty at Louisiana State University, where he taught art until 1954. Among his major commissions are the fresco murals at the Louisiana State Fair Exhibits Building in Shreveport, the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal, and the Waterman Building in Mobile, Alabama. After a trip to Mexico in 1955, he turned to the medium of mosaic and executed nine major mosaic murals, including this one, in New Orleans, Mobile, and other southern cities. Albrizio died at the age of 78 in Baton Rouge.