The next cover of the New Yorker will feature a drawing of Donald Trump at his arraignment on felony charges this week – the first time a courtroom sketch has graced the cover of the famous magazine.
Jane Rosenberg was one of three permitted sketch artists during the hearing involving the former president at the Manhattan criminal courthouse on Tuesday.
Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, as part of a hush money scheme involving the porn star Stormy Daniels.
Before this week, no president or former president had ever been criminally indicted.
Court artists are tasked with drawing what happens during proceedings where cameras are not allowed, a step taken by the judge in New York amid intense interest in the Trump hearing.
“I have been doing this job for some 43 years but this was my most stressful assignment yet,” Rosenberg told the New Yorker.
Trump spoke only nine words in the near hour-long arraignment. Rosenberg told the New Yorker she aimed to capture his dour demeanor.
Rosenberg became a courtroom artist after attending a lecture by a practitioner in New York. Her first paid job was a courtroom sketch sold to NBC on spec.
In her long career, she has covered high-profile cases including the trials of the movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the singer R Kelly, both convicted of sexual crimes.
“I try not to have emotion because tears falling on my pastels is not good,” Rosenberg told the Guardian in 2021, after sketching the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell.
“But I hear horrific things a lot and I’ve seen a lot of crime scene photos. Sometimes it gets to me, even when I’ve tried to be neutral. My life is weird, I guess. [More than 40] years of seeing bad guys and bad things happen.”
Maxwell, a British socialite now jailed on sex-trafficking charges, drew sketches of Rosenberg herself.
Asked why she thought Maxwell did so, Rosenberg said: “I don’t know, and I’m not going to try to read her mind … Maybe she was just bored coming out of her jail cell.”
