Title: A Sketch Artist's Account of the Courtroom

Kousha Navidar: You're listening to All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. Since the mid-20th century, courtroom drawings have been the preferred method of documenting trials in order to limit distractions. A new memoir captures a courtroom sketch artist's four-decade career drawing high profile defendants, including Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby. In the preface, author Jane Rosenberg writes, "A camera records a moment, but as an artist, I can linger on it, using every tool of color, shadow and perspective to perform my duty of telling the story.

In a detailed account, she explains how she learned more about our criminal justice system and recalls experiences producing thousands of sketches of defendants, lawyers, witnesses, gallery observers. She also shares stories of illustrating a man die by electric chair, drawing Ghislaine Maxwell as sketched-- Ghislaine Maxwell was sketching Jane back, and describes what Mafioso John Gotti was like in court before he became the big time boss of the Gambino crime family we know now. The memoir is titled Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist, and it comes out on Tuesday, August 13.

Author Jane Rosenberg joins us today right across the table from me, so lucky to have her here to discuss ahead of her talk with award-winning reporter Juliet Papa this upcoming Tuesday at 06:00 PM. That's at Barnes and Noble on 82nd in Broadway. Jane, welcome to All Of It.

Jane Rosenberg: Thank you.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, we'd like to hear from you as well. Are you a sketch artist or are you someone who likes to draw? What questions do you have for Jane Rosenberg about the job of a courtroom sketch artist? Have you seen her sketches of Tom Brady, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein? Tell us about a courtroom sketch you've seen that stuck with you. Give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-9692, that's 212-433-WNYC. You can also hit us up on Instagram or X. We're @AllOfItWNYC. Jane, you've sat in hundreds of cases. What inspired you to write Drawn Testimony now after, after four decades?

Jane Rosenberg: Well, I felt I had a story to tell. I went and looked at all my thousands of sketches and I thought, these are some big cases. I know people are interested in what I do and how I do it. People sit behind me in court and they are always fascinated to watch what I'm doing. There are a lot of questions out there, I'm sure.

Kousha Navidar: What made you think you had a story to tell now? How was that not a thought that came up to you before?

Jane Rosenberg: Oh, it came up before [laughter]. It's been there for-- as my collection grew and grew and expanded out into other rooms in my apartment, it was ready to be told, but I was approached by an agent, so I thought, okay, let's go for it.

Kousha Navidar: That was kind of the kick in the butt.

Jane Rosenberg: Yes. It was the kick in the butt.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, I hear that. What aspects of your career as a sketch artist in a courtroom did you want more people to understand by writing this book?

Jane Rosenberg: I think nobody knows anything. They didn't know who hires me. They thought I work for the courts. What do I bring? All the questions I had when I first started to be a courtroom artist. What can I bring? Where would I sit? There were a lot of questions, and I hope I answered most of them in the book.

Kousha Navidar: What was your exposure to becoming a courtroom sketch artist? Tell us through that story quickly.

Jane Rosenberg: Okay, quickly? [laughs]

Kousha Navidar: Well, you know, just what are the cliff notes there? How did you get exposed to it, originally?

Jane Rosenberg: Originally I had friends who were lawyers and took me to night court at 100 Center street, where I practiced and put together a portfolio. I kept asking the court officers, where did the artists sit? What do they bring? They said, come next week, we'll let you sit in the jury box with the other artists. When I came, there were two other artists, and one had Fox on his portfolio, and I had no idea who the other person was. I did the sketch, and I went home and I looked at it, and I thought, I really should make some calls and try to sell this.

I first called a startup company. Back then it was CNN, 1980. They were the startup company. I thought, well, maybe my best shot is to call them. They said, oh, we had an artist there. Now I stuck calling one of the big three, and I called NBC, and they said, come on in. Let's see what you got. I went to 30 Rock, and it was like, wow. I got shown around the newsroom. They said, great. They took my sketch and shot it on film. Back then it was film, put it on a wall, shot it. Took me in a back room, arranged for payment, and that's how it started, and I kept getting calls.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. You went right to 30 Rock and just started talking to them, and then, like, a couple weeks later, you were in a courtroom.

Jane Rosenberg: I was in the courtroom already before, but, yes, that's how I got out there.

Kousha Navidar: In the memoir, you reflect with such great detail about these pivotal cases. How were you able to recall these moments with so much context and detail over four decades?

Jane Rosenberg: I look at my sketches, I can remember.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. There's so much like memory just in the actual physical drawing of it or are the pictures themselves evocative and make you remember?

Jane Rosenberg: The pictures are evocative, and I was there, so hopefully I can recall it. I'm worried about will I recall everything right now as we're doing this interview, it's in me, so I have to recall it.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, absolutely. You actually started as a portrait artist in Provincetown, Massachusetts, right? Why did you decide to pivot?

Jane Rosenberg: Okay, let's go back to college, where when I went to college, it was the late '60s, early '70s, and abstract art was very big. People said, oh, realism is passé. You have to find something new to do. It was de Kooning, Rothko, Jackson Pollock. That was what was happening. I was a closet portrait artist. I would be home alone in my kitchen with a mirror, drawing myself, self portraits. Soon after college, I found my way to the Art Students League, where I studied figurative work and portraiture, so painting and portraiture, and I fell madly in love with that.

Then I ended up being a portrait artist in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for tourists in the summers. I would spend my summers in Provincetown sketching tourists. In the winters, I would be at the Art Students League. Now I'm back, going back and forth, back and forth, and I really felt, this is-- I went to a lecture at the Society of illustrators by Marilyn Church, another courtroom artist. That's when I saw what she was doing. I thought, wow, I would love to do a whole composition of a room, not just a head on a paper.

That's when I started going to court. I went with my friends who were lawyers to night court. She inspired me. She didn't personally, but watching that lecture, I didn't know if I'm good enough, but I looked in the mirror and I said, I'm going to go after this, and that's what I did.

Kousha Navidar: How was it in that first time when you were in the courtroom sketching what was different, what was unexpected, what was harder than you were anticipating?

Jane Rosenberg: I had no clients the first time, so it was not the same as once I was hired. I had a knot in my stomach every time for like years, I would go to court with a knot in my stomach. Am I going to be able to do this? Am I going to be able to pull it off? Will I see the defendant? Will I have enough of a view. Can I draw? There's a lot of fear with it.

Kousha Navidar: It's much more fast-paced, right?

Jane Rosenberg: Well, having to turn it out-- Over the years, the pace became faster and faster because when I first started, I didn't have to have my sketch finished till like 4:45 or-- maybe. There was a 06:00, then there was a 05:00 news, then there became a nude show. I had to have my sketch done by 11:30, and now it's 24/7, so I really have to keep turning them out all day long. That's what's different now than back in 1980. Plus, all this equipment blocks my view now. That didn't exist back then. There were not computer monitors on tables and giant furniture, and all this equipment.

Kousha Navidar: Where are you sitting in the actual courtroom? Are you with the other media folks? Is that why there's so much equipment in front of you or where?

Jane Rosenberg: The equipment in front of me is every table of full of several lawyers and defendants, or one even defendant. They each have a computer monitor and a laptop and whatever else they have out there. Like, you know, it's just a whole new modern technology world. A lot of equipment. That didn't exist. When I look at my old sketches, it was all blank tables, maybe a glass of water, a pitcher. It was great. I can see everybody.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: That's interesting. How do you think about drawing or not drawing that now, because you had less equipment, less noise in the picture, I guess I would call it. Do you remove that now? Do you choose not to draw it? How do you tackle that?

Jane Rosenberg: It depends how much time I have. If I have a lot of time, I'm going to put those water bottles in. That's kind of fun to draw that. If I don't have time, I'm going to leave out some of the equipment. The other thing is, sometimes I'm looking at a sliver of a person between two computer monitors, and I may have to lean to the left to get to the front of the head and lean right to get to the other, the back of the head. There's a lot of leaning and looking through slivers, and I may have to show it that way if that's what's all I've got. I have to put those two monitors in.

Kousha Navidar: You've got to put the two monitors for it to make sense, because then--

Jane Rosenberg: In the Trump trial, I had a court officer standing right in front of-- two of them blocking my view. A lot of times I'd be looking through a sliver of them, and a lot of my sketches have these elbows in them. You could see part of them standing and blocking my view. Sometimes I have to put it in.

Kousha Navidar: Well, speaking of the Trump trial, in the memoir, you said as soon as Trump was elected president, people started asking you if you thought you would end up sketching him in court, and you eventually did in the spring of 2023. Tell us, what feelings did you have leading up to that case, which was such a huge spectacle?

Jane Rosenberg: It was a huge spectacle, and I was very nervous, and I knew I'd have to draw him if it came to him showing up in a courtroom. I had already drawn a cover illustration for New York magazine where I did it from photos. I had spent some time getting his likeness, and I understood the structure of his head. That was helpful for me to draw a new person. You know, I've already worked out some of the details of his face. This time it was from life. An arraignment can be very quick. It could be just seconds. It could be a few minutes.

I've done, like, the Boston marathon bombing, that was seven minutes. I might have had only a short time, but in this Trump arraignment, I had a much longer time because there was some arguments from some lawyers for the media to allow more people in the courtroom. There were arguments-- the prosecution read off 34 counts, one by one by one. It took a long time, so I had a lot of time.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, we are talking to Jane Rosenberg, a courtroom sketch artist. The title of her memoir is Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist. We have some wonderful music to time us with it, to talk about the beautiful kinds of sketches that we have Jane talking about. Let's go to a caller, Cortez in Freehold, New Jersey. Hi, Cortez.

Cortez: Hey, how are you?

Kousha Navidar: Good. How are you?

Cortez: I'm so honored to be talking to you. I've seen your sketches, and I love them. One of my instructors in college was a police reporter. Not a police reporter, I'm sorry, a police sketch artist. Then from there, he went on to exhibit artwork. Have you exhibited your work beyond what you're doing in the court?

Jane Rosenberg: I have, and I do. Right now, there's a huge exhibit in the federal courthouse in Southern District, New York, of courtroom art. It's a group show. Three artists are in it. That's on exhibit now. There was another one right before that. I also exhibit my work in a gallery, my oil paintings, which are totally separate business. That is in a gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts, called Simie Maryles Gallery.

Kousha Navidar: Cortez, thank you so much for that call. Really appreciate you chiming in. If you listening right now, have any questions for Jane Rosenberg, this courtroom sketch artist, or if you are a sketch artist or someone who likes to draw, give us a call. Send us a text. Have you seen Jane's sketches of Tom Brady, of Donald Trump, of Harvey Weinstein? Give us a call. We're at 212-433-9692, that's 212-433-WNYC. We're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to dive into some more of the famous cases that Jane has drawn and take some more of your calls. Stay with us.

[music]

This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Kousha Navidar in for Alison Stewart. Today, we're talking to Jane Rosenberg, the courtroom sketch artist and the author of the memoir Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist. We are talking to folks now. If you have questions for Jane, give us a call, send us a text. We're at 212-433-9692, that's 212-433-WNYC. Jane. Here's a question from a listener who texted in. It says, please ask Jane how she continues sketching after the subjects move. I've learned to draw from life, but not from memory or invention, and wonder how it works. What do you think?

Jane Rosenberg: Memory is so important, because I would love for people to hold still, but they don't. They tilt their head to the left, they'll tilt it to the right. I just wish I could shout out, would you just pick one side and hold it? But I can't. I do have to remember which what I'm going, I have a lay in. I have the tilts going. I have to hold that. If I don't, I'm going to have a warped drawing. That does happen sometimes. Sometimes I forget I have to stick with what I started with. Otherwise everything's going out of whack.

Kousha Navidar: Do you have any flexibility or is it so fast-paced and just so much from your memory that once you start, you just have to kind of stick with it?

Jane Rosenberg: I have to stick with it, but sometimes in a courtroom, some people are sitting in the same seat in general, like a witness will be in that same seat. They may tilt left or right, but they will sit in that seat mostly facing front. Sometimes I'll wait for them to fall back in that position. If a lawyer jumps up and waves their arm, that I have no choice. They're not going to hold that pose. That I have to remember. I have to understand my anatomy, where the arm's going to be and how it's going to work out, because I understand what's going on.

I do have to remember. I have to remember, the gestures will just be lines, and then I have to fill it in. I don't finish my drawings after court. Everything is done right then and there. There's no touching up. It goes right out to the media. I sometimes want to cringe when I look at what I've sent out. I want to fix it, but it's too bad on me. I have to show the world what I've done in that short time.

Kousha Navidar: Here we have another texter who says, do you have to try hard not to infuse your sketches with your perhaps strong feelings about the defendants, witnesses, and others on the stand?

Jane Rosenberg: My job is to show what's happening, not to infuse my emotions into a drawing. I have to show whatever the person is doing, if they're crying, if they're leaning forward. Like with Trump, I drew him smiling. I drew him with his eyes shut, looking like he's asleep. I drew him leaning forward, leaning back, looking grumpy, which he did a lot. I have to draw what I see. It's up to the photo editors or the newsroom, the news editors, and they put together a story with the images I send in, and they'll choose what the story, what works with the story that they're putting out.

Kousha Navidar: It's amazing to think of how quickly you draw these sketches, and yet how filled with emotion they still are. What are some techniques that you use to convey the emotion that you see in the courtroom if it's on such a tight timeline there?

Jane Rosenberg: Techniques I use, you know, I just hold it in my mind. The expression in the arraignment of Trump, that initial sketch that we talked about when he was arraigned in 2023, he happened to-- I started to do a different sketch of him saying "not guilty" in a microphone. I had just pulled out a fresh sheet of paper, thinking that's what I'm going after. Then he turned and watched that-- He kind of snarled and sneered at the prosecutor as he read that, the 34 counts. I got a front view look at him, so I decided that's what I have to do. Look at-- He's holding that position for a long time. I went after that. I don't always have a plan. It just comes as it comes.

Kousha Navidar: As it comes, yes, and you just see it, and then you remember it and you put it into action.

Jane Rosenberg: He held that awhile, which was a luxury for me.

Kousha Navidar: I want to talk about the Tom Brady sketch as well. Almost 10 years ago, you drew a sketch of former quarterback back Tom Brady. It went viral. Some people called it funny. You ended up apologizing. Can you tell us about that drawing? What expressions did you want to capture on Tom Brady's face?

Jane Rosenberg: I wasn't even going for a specific expression. He was in-- I didn't even know who he was until I got to court, but I knew the story was about him and about Roger Goodell. They were in separate tables in the courtroom. I figured everybody, the cameras were all outside. I figured they're going to have photos of Tom Brady walking in, walking out. They may not even use my sketch, but I'll do a wide shot to show him sitting in relation to Roger Goodell. I did all these lawyers, and Tom Brady's head was about an inch big, but it turned into a huge, blown out of proportion.

Everybody just blew up on that inch drawing, which, by the way, with pastels, it's very hard to work small because they're clunky and chunky and hard to get those fine lines. I didn't know what a meme was. I had done the sketch. I came out and I saw my-- I went over to the truck of CBS where the camera, where the reporter was. He opened his laptop, and he said, oh, this thing has gone viral. I thought, what's going on? I looked. I've learned what memes were. They were all over the place. People really were, like, mocking it and making pictures of the scream with Tom Brady's head on it or Michael Jackson dancing around.

Kousha Navidar: That is a tough way to learn about memes, is by providing a meme. Anything that gets memed.

Jane Rosenberg: Oh yes, it was wild. I didn't intend for him to look bad or good or-- he did look at a cell phone a lot. That might have been one of those cases where I told you, if you don't hold your initial angle, and he was going up and down a lot, I might have gone off on that one, so I apologize. I mean, he is, standards, I guess people would say he's handsome.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Well, you just captured what you saw, right?

Jane Rosenberg: I tried. I tried my best.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Let's go to Chitra in Morristown, New Jersey. Hey, Chitra am I pronouncing your name correctly?

Chitra: Yes. Am I on?

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Hi. Welcome, you're on with Jane Rosenberg.

Chitra: Hi. Oh, it's so exciting. What a talent somebody like you have. My question is, some of these famous people have a lot of caricatures made of them. When you sketch somebody like that, like Trump, for example, in a courtroom setting, do you become very conscious of making sure you know that it is real and not some, you know, like that hair and stuff, that it looks more like you are making fun of? You know what I'm saying? I hope I'm saying it correctly.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, Chitra, I think that's really well placed. There's a lot of drawings out there of some very famous people. How do you navigate that?

Jane Rosenberg: I'm not a caricaturist, so that's never my goal. I don't even know how to do caricatures, and I am still going after drawing what I see, and that's all I'm trying to do. I'm not thinking about caricatures or cartoons or anything when I'm in a courtroom. I'm just drawing whatever's happening.

Kousha Navidar: Chitra, thank you so much for that question. We really appreciate it. Here's another text question that we have. Have your ideas about the justice system changed or developed through this work? This is from Lisa in Maplewood, New Jersey.

Jane Rosenberg: Okay. When I first started, one of my very early cases was the person who murdered John Lennon, Mark David Chapman. I remember I went into a courtroom, and I saw his defense attorney standing there, and I hated him. I thought, how could he represent this horrible person who just murdered John Lennon? Later on through time, I did develop an understanding of how the legal system works, and I ended up marrying a defense attorney. I understood that there has to be checks and balances. There has to be two sides, so people can come out with the truth, and the jury will decide what the truth is. They usually get it right. Not always, but usually.

Kousha Navidar: We have another text here that says, does she, Jane, see physical or emotive differences in people who have done very bad things, or do the people involved more or less look like everyone else?

Jane Rosenberg: It's very hard to read a face. Look at Bernie Madoff. He would look like a nice old Man. He did not betray--nothing belie-- the word I'm looking for, his face did not show what he had done. He ruined people's lives, took all their money. I suppose people trusted him because he had that face, and they gave him their money. You can't always tell what a person's like. There are some brilliant con men that are so great and their faces don't show it.

Kousha Navidar: Here's another text that we have, "Why have courtroom artists continued to be employed? Why not photos? Will AI take their places? I hope not. I love the sketches." The future of the profession, I think, and I think folks are, at least in this text, also wondering, why not just photos?

Jane Rosenberg: Why not? Because right now the law is that photos can't, cameras can't get into, they cannot get into any federal courthouses or rooms, and they can't get into some states, state courts. New York has a law that it's up to the judge. Sometimes they get in, like with Harvey Weinstein. All those cameras were outside. I thought, nobody's ever going to see my sketch because they all got inside the courtroom, and yet the sketch went viral, so that happens.

Kousha Navidar: What do you feel like are the most rewarding aspects of your career when you look back on four decades?

Jane Rosenberg: I love drawing. I'm very lucky. I make a living at doing what I love to do. That's rewarding in itself. Just, I'm serving people. People have a need and they appreciate me. That's a wonderful gift that I have, people who appreciate what I'm doing. It's, you know, social service in a way.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. We got to put a pin in it there. I want to thank you so much, Jane. I've been speaking with courtroom sketch artist Jane Rosenberg about her memoir titled Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist. It's out Tuesday, August 13. Jane, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Jane Rosenberg: You're welcome.

Kousha Navidar: All right, that is our show for today. Thanks for being here with us. I'll meet you back here next Wednesday. Coming up on Monday's show, here's what's happening. Host Alison Stewart talks about how to manage kids' screen time, and will hear a live in-studio performance from Tank and the Bangas. This has been All Of It. All Of It is produced by Andrea Duncan Mao, Kate Hinds, Jordan Lauf, Simon Close, L. Malik Anderson and Luke Green and Aki Camargo.

Megan Ryan is the head of live radio. Our engineers are Juliana Fonda, Jason Isaac and Shayna Sengstock. Luscious Jackson does our music. If you missed any segments this week, you can always catch up by listening to our podcast. It's available on your podcast platform of choice. Thank you all so much for hanging out with us this week. Loved the calls. Loved the pep talks. Loved having Jane on. Have a great weekend. We'll see you back here on Monday.

 

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