Through March 31, visitors to the Doe Library at UC Berkeley can step back a few decades and catch a glimpse of some of the most notorious criminals of the tumultuous 1970s.

A special exhibit, “Two Artists of the Courtroom: Rosalie Ritz and Walt Stewart,” showcases the work of two of the best courtroom sketch artists.

Ritz and Stewart covered the trials of the Manson family, the Soledad brothers, Angela Davis, Ruchell Magee, newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, Eldridge Cleaver, Larry Layton (part of the Jonestown People’s Temple) and Dan White, the San Francisco supervisor who shot and killed Mayor George Moscone and fellow supervisor Harvey Milk.

The airy hollowness of the gray marble gallery is like a mausoleum, a perfect nuance that enhances the glimpse of scandalous ghosts from one of California’s most turbulent times.

A native Californian, Stewart spent his youth in Berkeley. After graduating from the University of the Pacific in Stockton with a degree in art, and a second in illustration from the Art Center College in Los Angeles, he landed in Dallas, Texas, working at WFAA-TV. His first assignment as a courtroom sketch artist was capturing the images of an assassin’s assassin - Jack Ruby, who shot Lee Harvey Oswald.
He continued as a freelance artist for the networks and took many assignments, including at local television station KRON in San Francisco.

Don Knapp, a longtime Bay Area reporter, recalled that one of the most memorable things about Stewart was his self-criticism about his craft.

“The greatest thing about Walt was that he was very self-deprecating,” Knapp said. “He’d talk about how bad he drew, but everyone knew how serious he was about courtroom art.”
Knapp praised Stewart’s ability and said that when he put ink to paper, the image would emerge - dead on - of the person he was trying to capture.

“It was magical,” Knapp said.

Stewart’s likenesses of the Manson family included Susan Atkins, Steven “Tex” Watson, Leslie Van Houten, Linda Kasabian and Manson himself. They were technically correct in every sense, down to the swastika that Manson and his followers carved on their foreheads while on trial. They leer back from the sketches, just at they did before the cameras in 1969.

In the corners of nearly all his sketches, Stewart made notes referencing various attributes of the scene: “green pants,” “brown hair,” “lawyer,” “deputy” and so on.

For his work, Stewart won three Emmy awards and the admiration of many who knew him.
Knapp said that he saw Stewart shortly before he passed away.

“I thought it would be awful to go and see him like that (dying in the hospital), but there he was in his room at Kaiser—joking laughing, talking about parties,” Knapp said. “He was the center of attention and just put on a happy face. Just a wonderful guy to be around.”

According to a UC Berkeley press release, Ritz was trained in art at the age of 14 at Layton Art College. By age 16 she, along with four other women, toured traveling circuses and county fairs where they earned money by sketching portraits.

In a telephone interview Ritz said she got her real start sketching at congressional hearings. In 1966 she and her husband moved to California, raising their children in the Bay Area, where opportunities came along to cover courtroom proceedings.

“I started with the Sirhan trial,” Ritz said, referring to Sirhan Sirhan, who shot and killed Sen. Robert Kennedy in 1968. “Doing trials in those days was hot news; at that (time) they didn’t allow cameras (in the courtroom).”

When Ritz first began sketching courtroom scenes, she said all her drawings were in black and white.
“But then color TV came along and I began doing my sketches in color,” she said.

Ritz recalled memories of her time as a courtroom artist, including one where she and an Associated Press reporter were reportedly on the trail of (then fugitive) Patty Hearst.

“But then you know, they caught her before we could get to her,” she said. Ritz often provided a vignette of the scenes in her sketches.

In one illustration of the Soledad brothers, John Cluchette and Fleeta Drumgo, she wrote, “John Thorne, attorney for Jackson, pointed his finger at the judge. Cluchette’s mother cries out when she sees her son and his shaved head.” Her words are a tremendous enhancement to the image.

For her work the Associated Press presented her with a Special Arts Award in 1972.
Today, the lively-sounding octogenarian keeps busy painting and writing from her home in Walnut Creek. Her last assignment was the civil trial of O.J. Simpson, where a press member called her “a legend.”

“I covered every one of the Black Panther trials,” she said proudly. “And I was the only one who did.”