Professor John Q. Barrett has published the “cover” article, “Law Clerk John Costelloe’s Photographs of the Stone Court Justices, October 1943,” in a recent issue of the Journal of Supreme Court History.

John F. Costelloe was Justice Robert H. Jackson’s first Supreme Court law clerk, serving from 1941-1943. Costelloe also was a talented photographer.

In October 1943, as Costelloe was completing his clerkship, he got each Supreme Court Justice to pose for his camera. He took close, candid portrait photographs of Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone and Associate Justices Owen J. Roberts, Hugo L. Black, Stanley Reed, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Frank Murphy, Robert H. Jackson, and Wiley Rutledge.

Costelloe’s photographs are published for the first time in Barrett’s article, which is about Costelloe, Jackson, their close relationship, and the history of the photographs. (Click here for an article abstract.)

The Journal of Supreme Court History is provided to members of The Supreme Court Historical Society and to many libraries. It also is available for purchase online. Barrett’s article is, except for its first page, behind a paywall (click here).

Here is the Journal cover, one of Costelloe’s photographs of Justice Jackson. It looks blurry, online and here. On the Journal cover itself, the photograph is, like each of Costelloe’s photographs, crisp and evocative.