The Spectator

Sketches in the News

 Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist

By Jane Rosenberg

Hanover Square Press

254 pp

 

If you’re a news junkie like me, you have probably seen Jane Rosenberg’s work and not given a second thought to the person behind it. But after reading her book, I would bet you’ll pay attention

every time the work of a courtroom sketch artist appears on the screen or in your newspaper. She’s documented some of the biggest trials of the past 40 years. Among her subjects have been Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Bernie Madoff and El Chapo. One of her drawings of Trump became a New Yorker Cover. 

In this book she tells how she became a courtroom artist and what the job entails. If you’re an artist (as several of my friends are), you’ll appreciate the details on how she quickly brings together a sketch and what she must wrestle with to do it. She has learned that when she fails — and that’s not the right word — she can become the story. 

One of her most famous “failures” was of a group of lawyers and others around a table in court. One of those others was Tom Brady, the famous quarterback of the New England Patriots. She didn’t even know who Brady was and he was not the focus of the drawing. She reveals that he was difficult to draw, thanks to a rather chiseled visage, and the result was something akin to Frankenstein’s monster. 

The pushback was tremendous and Rosenberg became the story. From then on, she practiced drawing his face because she knew she would get other opportunities. 

The book moves along on many threads. There is the story of the sketch artist and how she goes about her work setting up in court, the story of the trials and her thoughts on the same, and how she struggles to get it right. Fortunately, many of her subjects are not like Tom Brady. She’s thankful for Bernie Madoff and his flowing mane, which is easy to render. El Chapo, on the other hand, shaved his moustache, “the only thing that really qualified as an identifying feature.” 

Rosenberg is an artist with words as well and her descriptions make the book sing. She says of El Chapo: “The kingpin sat, like a retiree idling on the front porch, as the lurid tale of his bloody reign was told.”

I would like cameras in the courtroom but lacking them I’ve always been grateful for the sketch artist. Even if courts eventually allow cameras, the sketch artist will still be welcome.