Contemporary Justice and Man

Through an open competition, John Ballator was selected to depict Contemporary Justice and Man on the second floor stairwell of the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. The Section of Painting and Sculpture also commissioned Emil Bisttram to paint Contemporary Justice and Woman on the first floor and Symeon Shimin to portray Contemporary Justice and the Child on the third floor. For his mural, Ballator sought to illustrate the freedom of man through labor and the benefits of urban and rural planning.

The mural has a strong triangular composition with three distinct registers of people planning and building a new community. The mural features several scenes showing men as laborers, architects, and engineers. Notably, Ballator limited his portrayal of Contemporary Justice and Man to white men. At center, several men pore over a map of the development of Greenbelt, Maryland. This was the first planned community created by the Resettlement Administration, established under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in May 1935. Intended to employ workers and provide housing for low- and moderate-income families in the wake of the Great Depression, Greenbelt represented a new ideal in urban development. However, similar to other planned communities at this time, African Americans were barred from applying as residents. Not until 1963 were black families slowly welcomed into the community.

One of the men at the drafting table gestures upward toward the engineers, architects, and workmen executing the plans. At the bottom of the mural, a gathering of men, women, and children of different ages gaze downward or look upward expectantly, awaiting new housing and commercial structures. Women tend to fulfill traditional roles in the mural as caretakers and mothers, while men are shown as providers of society. Similar to other New Deal artists, Ballator presents a comforting vision of men getting back to work at a time of massive unemployment. In comparison, Bisttram’s companion mural, Contemporary Justice and Woman, explores the many professions and opportunities accessible to women outside of the home in the 1930s.

Along the upper left section of the composition, Ballator depicts the development of the Hoover Dam (known as the Boulder Dam until 1947). After five years of construction, the dam began operation in the spring of 1936 just as Ballator started working on the mural’s design. The dam utilized innovative structures and building techniques and provided irrigation, power, and flood control. Along the upper right of the painting, Ballator contrasts two forms of development. The bottom scene shows poor living conditions with ramshackle dwellings placed close to factories and smokestacks, while the top illustration represents model housing surrounded by trees situated at a comfortable distance from a major metropolis similar to New York City.

Between the fall of 1936 and summer of 1937, Ballator’s mural received numerous critiques and suggestions from the Department of Justice building architect Charles Borie, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, and the Section of Painting and Sculpture. Officials complained about the color values, clumsy handling of figures, and uneven relationships between different registers of the composition. After Ballator made numerous revisions to the work, the mural was installed in September 1937. That same month, the first tenants moved into their new homes in Greenbelt, Maryland.