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
“A mesmerizing look at this rarest of professions… As talented as Rosenberg is at drawing, she is an equally gifted writer… An utterly absorbing read.”–Bookpage 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
Kirkus Reviews
2024-06-14
Perhaps the best-known courtroom sketch artist working today looks over a long career and discusses her métier.
“I reach for the primary tool of my trade, a pastel pencil, and begin to draw,” writes Rosenberg. All those recent drawings of Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, and Stormy Daniels (“a slightly ethereal figure, hovering ghostlike behind Cohen”) in that New York City courtroom were the product of that pencil, just a few of the thousands of drawings Rosenberg has produced over the years. Starting off as a portraitist, she “put the ‘starving’ in starving artist,” then stumbled into courtroom art, freelance work that’s unpredictable and hard to plan around. Over her long career, she writes, it “has been considered the ultimate dying art.” Fortunately for her, some legal proceedings ban cameras; fortunately, too, art can sometimes convey human character and emotions in ways that elude photographers and videographers. So it was, she writes near the opening, that in the initial trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, she was able to capture the nuances of a woman who seemed to regard the courtroom as a theater stage and was responsive to Rosenberg’s presence: “She may have been wearing a mask almost throughout, but even with half a face she was giving me more to work with than many I have drawn across my long career.” A mask over Zoom impeded her ability to capture Derek Chauvin, the police officer who murdered George Floyd, which “meant that my sketches were even more of a jigsaw puzzle than normal.” With a cast of characters including John Gotti, Woody Allen, Bernie Madoff, Mark David Chapman, Bill Cosby, Susan Smith, and Tom Brady, and with smart commentary on technique, Rosenberg delivers stories for every true-crime buff—and aspiring courtroom artist.
A revealing look at an often-overlooked aspect of the legal system.
