Marilyn Church poses for a photo holding one of her courtroom sketches in her studio in New York. - Courtesy of Marilyn Church
Under the circumstances, Marilyn Church found it difficult to work: Son of Sam sat two feet away, his blue eyes staring directly and steadily into her own.
Church, a courtroom artist, had never been this close to a defendant, much less a serial killer. David Berkowitz, aka “Son of Sam,” murdered six people and terrorized the city of New York for 12 months beginning in the summer of 1976.
Now Berkowitz sat for a sanity hearing in a makeshift courtroom in a hospital — bedsheets draped the table where judge, defendant and artist sat. But it wasn’t just the surroundings or the nearness or weirdness of Berkowitz that so unsettled Church.
“I realized that I very much resembled his victims,” she said. “I had long, dark hair at the time — that’s the way all his victims looked. I was the right age. My fingers froze trying to keep drawing.”
Church managed to finish that day, and she kept right on drawing for the next 30-plus years, covering many of the biggest trials of the age.
Left: Marla Maples, the estranged wife of real estate mogul Donald Trump, spent nearly an hour in court in New York identifying 75 pairs of shoes that her former publicist was accused of stealing. Right: Woody Allen - Mia Farrow Custody Trial, 1993.
Church illustrated a courthouse who’s who of killers, terrorists, would-be assassins, celebrity villains, wayward entertainers, mob bosses, upper-crust criminals and high-profile plaintiffs: John Hinckley, Mark David Chapman, John Gotti, Woody Allen, Martha Stewart, Leona Helmsley, Jackie Kennedy, Donald Trump and the “Preppy Killer,” Robert Chambers, among many others.
The cases, faces and places captured in Church’s work for newspapers and networks now have a new home: The Library of Congress in December acquired the majority of her collection, some 4,000 sketches.
Because cameras typically aren’t allowed in court, the work of Church and others like her provides a carefully and colorfully rendered view of historic trials that otherwise wouldn’t exist at all.
Left: The People of the State of New York v. Sean Combs, 2000. Right: United States of America v. Martha Stewart and Peter Bacanovic, 2004.
The illustrations don’t just open a window on the world of celebrity justice — in one scene, Marla Maples (Donald Trump’s ex-wife) takes the witness stand surrounded by boxes of shoes. The renderings also show how courtrooms evolved over time with, for example, the addition of more women and African-Americans as judges and lawyers.
“These do more than capture individuals,” says Sara Duke, a curator in the Prints and Photographs Division. “For scholars who want to look at how attitudes shifted over time in the courtroom, here’s a good place to start.”
Church never imagined she would make a career in the courtroom. She studied painting and illustration at the Pratt Institute, a private art college in Brooklyn, and later worked as a fashion illustrator.
She’d never set foot in court. She had no background in legal matters and wasn’t an aficionado of high-profile trials.
“I didn’t even know that artists drew in the courtroom,” she says.
In 1974, a friend suggested that she give courtroom illustration a try. So Church attended the misconduct trial of a Queens, N.Y., district attorney for a week, sitting behind the other artists and sketching scenes.
She loved it.
“That’s when I said, ‘I can do this. This is great,’ “ Church says.
She shopped her week’s worth of work to all the TV stations and newspapers in New York City. WABC-TV hired her, and she eventually worked for The New York Times, ABC and CNN, among other media outlets.
Church’s long-term prospects didn’t seem bright. “It’s too bad you’re starting so late, because cameras are about to replace us all,” her new colleagues would say.
But Church found the work compelling: “The best dramas in town,” she says. “The best legal minds arguing, sparring. The defendant’s life on the line in many cases. It’s drawing from life. It’s making art.”
She quickly learned the key skills of the trade: Lightning speed. Accuracy. A feel for crucial moments. A knack for framing scenes. An eye for the details that would sustain interest over a long camera shot.
And she learned to be prepared for anything.
“A witness could suddenly stand up and point out somebody or break down and cry,” she says.
Or, as once happened, a defendant could suddenly punch out his lawyer and put him on the ground.
“Whatever happens in a courtroom, you must be prepared,” she says. “There’s never any excuse for not capturing something important that’s happened.”
Left: United States of America v. Don King, 1998. Right: “The Preppy Killer” People of the State of New York v. Robert Chambers, 1988.
Her work at times led her into unexpected places.
Church covered the trial of Jean Harris, headmistress of The Madeira School, who in 1980 was charged with and later convicted of the murder of her lover, Herman Tarnower, the author of “The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet.”
When Hollywood produced a TV movie about the trial, Church played the courtroom artist onscreen, served as a visual consultant and drew the “bumper drawings” that carried the broadcast into and out of commercials.
“I went through the trial once drawing it and went through it again in Hollywood over and over in those scenes,” she says.
The night former Beatle John Lennon was murdered, WABC called on Church to produce an “artist’s conception” of the events, an imagined re-creation of scenes.
The station’s coverage — including Church’s work — won an Emmy. But the Lennon drawings are not part of the Library of Congress collection. She never saw them again after that night.
Church had to constantly fight to keep her drawings from getting lost by the news crews, and the Lennon illustrations were no exception.
“I can’t tell you how casually TV stations treated these drawings,” she says.
Witnessing court proceedings wasn’t always easy — even if they didn’t involve a Son of Sam or Preppy Killer.
The custody battle between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow — and the charges of inappropriate behavior by Allen with Farrow’s adopted daughter — troubled Church on a personal level.
“He was an icon for me,” she says. “He was such a brilliant writer and moviemaker. Sitting every day in court for about three weeks listening to these terrible charges against him …”
By the end of the trial, she says, Allen just sat there, a beaten man.
“I realized that you really have to stay removed from what you’re hearing,” she says. “You cannot let your emotions run away with you.”
Left: The People of the State of California v. O.J. Simpson, 1995. Right: Jean Harris testifies at the murder trial of Dr. Herman Tarnower, 1980.
Just as the artist observes the court, the court at times observes the artist.
Mob boss John Gotti closely followed the press coverage of his trial — he knew the artists and reporters and the media outlets they represented.
Gotti’s brother once approached Church in court and complained that she had misrepresented the mob boss’s hairline.
Another day, Church looked up to see Gotti himself gesturing to her.
Surprised, she looked back over her shoulder, saw no one and turned again to Gotti.
Who, me?
He nodded, then pointed to his neck and waggled his finger in warning.
“He had been following the drawings,” Church says. “He was saying, ‘Don’t draw my neck fat anymore. I’m watching you.’”
About 20 years ago, Church began to consider what she would do with the collection she was steadily amassing.
She inquired at the Brooklyn Historical Museum and the New York Historical Society. The answer was discouraging: The institutions just didn’t have the facilities to house her collection.
A friend suggested the Library of Congress, but Church was skeptical.
“I had that in my mind: But if the New York museums couldn’t take it,” she thought, “why would the Library of Congress with its much more national orientation?”
But she kept it in the back of her mind. Eventually, she placed a call to the Library that Duke was happy to receive.
“This is our only entrance into the realm of the courtroom,” Duke says. “With the exception of the O.J. Simpson trial and Judge Wapner, court is not televised. So this is our ticket into those moments in time.”
Church, meanwhile, still is hard at work.
She recently published a book, “The Art of Justice: An Eyewitness View of Thirty Famous Trials,” featuring many of her courtroom scenes. Last month, she covered the court appearance of Viktor Bout, an international arms dealer.
And she paints for her own pleasure — but in an abstract style that’s quite the opposite of the detailed, literal renderings she produces for her day job.
There is, she concedes, a connection.
“In my paintings no one is identifiable, faces are seldom detailed because I find the mysterious and the unknowable most fascinating,” she says. “I love the idea that nobody is telling me what needs to be in a picture and the freedom to do that is what’s intriguing to me.”
And she is glad that her courtroom art has found a permanent home at the Library, where it can be useful to scholars for years to come.
“I am so thrilled that it is there,” Church says. “Really thrilled.”
Court Holdings in the Library
The Library holds some work by courtroom artists—scenes, for example, from the trials of the Chicago Seven and Sirhan Sirhan (Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin)—but the addition of Church’s drawings easily represents the Library’s largest collection of such work.
The acquisition will significantly extend the Library’s representation of famous trials, beginning with the work of Howard Brodie in the 1950s and 1960s, and will give the American people visual access to some of the most important judicial trials in the 20th century.
Church’s drawings are an important part of American history, because she portrayed events unfolding in courtrooms where cameras were not allowed. She provided insight into the people who influenced the major issues of the late 20th century, including race and race relations, gender, women’s reproduction, political and corporate corruption, religion, international relations and celebrities. Her collection offers researchers an opportunity to learn from poignant illustrations about some of the most famous people in America during their most vulnerable moments.
