'Drawn Testimony' is a courtroom sketch artist's memoir spanning 40 years

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Arts, Books

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2024

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Courtroom sketch artist Jane Rosenberg has worked on some of the biggest trials of the last 40 years, drawing the likes of Martha Stewart, Jeffrey Epstein, and most recently, Donald Trump. Her new memoir, Drawn Testimony, examines her unique role in the news cycle, where art and criminal justice collide. In today's episode, Rosenberg speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about how she got into this line of work, why mobsters are fun to draw and which high-profile defendant asked her to add more hair to his portrait.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. There's something poetic about a courtroom
0:07.2	sketch. Because you're not allowed photos and you obviously can't ask the subject to hold a pose,
0:13.4	it's not quite a depiction of reality, but it's more of a depiction of a photo you took in your
0:19.2	head. I'll be albeit with some of the reference
0:21.2	points right in front of you, but it's not like you'll ever get that exact pose back
0:25.3	ever again. It's something Jane Rosenberg has thought about. She is a courtroom sketch artist
0:30.6	who has sketched some of the biggest names that have sat for trial. She's got a new book out
0:35.4	about her experiences titled drawn testimony Testimony. And in this
0:38.7	interview with NPR Scott Simon, she talks about one, frankly, horrific moment on the job
0:44.4	that stuck with her and the one defendant who asked her to draw him with more hair. That's ahead.
0:53.9	In the criminal justice system, the defendants, prosecutors, and others are often drawn by a courtroom sketch artist.
1:01.6	Jane Rosenberg has now told her story in her book, drawn testimony, My Four Decades, as a courtroom sketch artist.
1:09.5	Trials that include John Gotti, Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein,
1:12.8	Martha Stewart, Steve Bannon, Jeffrey Epstein, Gilaine Maxwell, former President Donald Trump,
1:18.6	and also a botched execution that stays with her to this day. Jane Rosenberg joins us from our
1:24.6	studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
1:32.5	You're welcome. As you note, you can't call out, hey, hold that pose, Mr. Gotti.
1:35.1	No, I wish I could.
1:37.3	How do you sketch an event that's moving?
1:45.3	I have to depend on memory a lot and my knowledge of anatomy and facial expression and the muscles that move in the face.
1:48.0	You were an art student.
1:51.1	How did you come to courtroom sketching?
	...

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