Drawn Testimony: My Four Decades as a Courtroom Sketch Artist

by Jane Rosenberg Narrated by Gabra Zackman

Overview

A penetrating, compulsively readable memoir about the four-decade career of America's top courtroom sketch artist, for fans of Lab Girl and Working Stiff

Jane Rosenberg is America's pre-eminent courtroom sketch artist. For over forty years, she's been at the heart of the story, covering almost every major trial that has passed through the New York justice system. From mob bosses to fallen titans of finance, terrorists and sex abusers, corrupt cops and warring entertainment icons, she has drawn them all.

In Drawn Testimony, Rosenberg brings us into the high-stakes, dramatic world of her craft, where art, psychology and courtroom drama collide. Over the course of her legendary career, Jane has had a front row seat to some of the most iconic and notorious moments in our nation's recent history, sketching everything from Tom Brady's deflate-gate case, to John Lennon's murder trial to cases against Ghislaine Maxwell, John Gotti, Harvey Weinstein and most recently, the indictment against former President Donald Trump. Readers will learn how she has honed her unique powers of perception, but also what her portraits reveal, not only about her subjects, but about the human condition in general.

Fearless, fascinating and gorgeously written, Drawn Testimony captures the unique career of an artist whose body of work depicts history as it's happening.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

★ 06/17/2024

Rosenberg’s fascinating debut offers a front row seat to some of the most high-profile criminal cases of the last four decades. As a lover of realism in a sea of abstract impressionists, Rosenberg spent her first years out of art school in the late 1970s feeling frustrated and out of step with contemporary trends. Then a 1980 lecture by courtroom artist Marilyn Church at New York City’s Society of Illustrators convinced Rosenberg that her best chance at making a living doing realistic portraiture was to pick up a sketch pad and head to the courthouse. As she recounts her ascent to the top of the field—first by selling a drawing from an arraignment to NBC, then as a go-to for clients like CNN—Rosenberg provides insider details about trials she worked on, including those of Ghislaine Maxwell, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby. In a relaxed, personable style, Rosenberg writes of both the quotidian and soul-chilling aspects of her job, from drawing on her sketch pad with one hand and holding her egg salad sandwich with the other to scrubbing chalk from her hands, Lady Macbeth–style, after drawing convicted murderer John Evans. The results thrill without teetering into salaciousness. Readers will be hard-pressed to put this down. Agent: Rebecca Wearmouth, Peters, Fraser & Dunlop (U.K.). (Aug.)

From the Publisher

"Drawn Testimony is riveting. Through the singular craft that is her life's calling, Rosenberg gives us a front row seat to the most important courtroom trials of our generation."—Hope Jahren, New York Times bestselling author of Lab Girl

"An immersive and riveting reading experience. Jane Rosenberg captures moment and mood in her sketches, turning pastel impressions into whole narratives—and, along the way, slyly relating a unique forty-year cultural history of New York City."—Judy Melinek & T.J. Mitchell, New York Times bestselling authors of Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner

“Reading Drawn Testimony is like peering over Jane Rosenberg’s shoulder as she deftly captures telling moments from trial after trial. Against the odds, her prose keeps pace with her pastels.”—Patrick Bringley, author of All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me

"...As vibrant and compelling a writer as she is an artist... Perceptive, compassionate, and endlessly fascinated by how the human condition is revealed in the courtroom, Rosenberg tells riveting and resonant tales in image and word."—Booklist STARRED review

“Rosenberg’s fascinating debut offers a front row seat to some of the most high-profile criminal cases of the last four decades…The results thrill without teetering into salaciousness. Readers will be hard-pressed to put this down.”—Publishers Weekly STARRED review

“Rosenberg delivers stories for every true-crime buff—and aspiring courtroom artist… A revealing look at an often-overlooked aspect of the legal system.”—Kirkus Reviews

"Rosenberg’s fascinating debut offers a front row seat to some of the most high-profile criminal cases of the last four decades."—Library Journal STARRED review

Library Journal

★ 07/01/2024

In the era of omnipresent cell phone cameras and AI, what's behind the continued relevance of courtroom sketch artists? This is the question at the heart of Rosenberg's memoir about her four decades working in this highly specific yet ever-changing field. Having illustrated key moments, from the botched execution of John Louis Evans in 1983 and the COVID-era trial of Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021 to Donald Trump's first indictment in 2023, she depicts her experiences in this distinctive field with meticulous prose that will make readers feel as though they are in the courtroom with her. She writes about fumbling for the correct pastel to secure the perfect sketch of a moment that cannot, for legal reasons, be caught on camera. While innovations in the legal system and journalism have changed how her work is disseminated, the book shows how courtroom artists add depth to proceedings that could otherwise only be described in words. VERDICT Readers interested in true crime or the legal system will be delighted with Rosenberg's narrative gift. They won't want to miss her memoir's unique perspectives.—Jennifer Moore

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160217024
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/13/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	738,616

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