{"id":854,"date":"2024-05-19T23:47:03","date_gmt":"2024-05-20T03:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/?p=854"},"modified":"2024-05-19T23:59:27","modified_gmt":"2024-05-20T03:59:27","slug":"courtroom-art-an-interview-with-joseph-papin-new-york-and-company-1987-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/courtroom-art-an-interview-with-joseph-papin-new-york-and-company-1987-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Courtroom Art: An Interview with Joseph Papin, New York and Company, 1987 (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Interview by Leonard Lopate, New York and Company,
Aired on December 14, 1987 (Transcribed and illustrated using Joseph Papin\u2019s work, J Papin, 2021)

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Joseph Papin, F. Donald Nixon testifying at the conspiracy trial of John Mitchell and Maurice Stans, 1974
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Joseph Papin\u2019s drawing of the Mitchell Stans trial (reproduced above and drawn from his seat at floor level) was used as the cover of the exhibition brochure, Contemporary Courtroom Artists, authored by Susanne Owens, M. Jessica Rowe and Barry M. Winiker. The three year traveling show (1979-1982) was put together by Owens, Rowe and Winiker, Lowe Gallery, Syracuse University, and included the work of Anthony Accurso, Marilyn Church, Stephen Cohen, Ida Libby Dengrove, Albert Herr, Joseph Papin, Richard Tomlinson, Meryl Treatner, and Betty Wells.

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Interview with Joseph Papin, by Leonard Lopate, New York and Company, December 1987

LL: \u201cCourtroom artists have a tradition going back to the 19th century, a tradition now threatened by a new ruling which allows New York to join forty-four other states that now permit cameras in their courtrooms. We\u2019ve invited Joe Papin, a courtroom artist for thirty years, to share some of the dramatic moments he has witnessed during that long career. Mr. Papin has covered the trials of Patty Hearst and John Gotti, among others, and is currently covering the Howard Beach trial. We\u2019re very pleased to welcome him to New York and Company.\u201d

LL: \u201cHi.\u201d

JP: \u201cHello.\u201d

LL: \u201cWhere do your drawings usually appear? We\u2019re most used to seeing them on television.\u201d

JP: \u201cYes, well true. I\u2019m on staff at the Daily News so that\u2019s where the drawings, if they\u2019re selected\u2014one offers\u2014and if it is chosen for that day, then it appears, according to the space the story is given. It isn’t a matter of going out and\u2014I do, of course, what I think is the scene that I’ve looked at\u2014it\u2019s up to the editor, he is the one who makes the ultimate decision as to whether it gets in.\u201d

LL: \u201cWell they often do use your drawings, your drawing of David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer, that made the front page of the Daily News, your drawings of the Gotti trial pretty much dominated the inside pages of the News.\u201d

JP: \u201cWell it\u2019s delightful when an artist can make a page one. I\u2019ve been on staff for 18 years at the News and I believe I have perhaps twelve or fourteen page ones. The competition between the photography and the art, of course, is intensely keen. And now, in the last three or four weeks, there have been very few drawings appearing, I’m sure in anticipation of when the lens is going to be introduced.\u201d

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LL: \u201cWell that must really frighten you, or there other things for you to do? What’s going to happen when the cameras are allowed in all courtrooms?\u201d

JP: \u201cWell of course there\u2019s going to be a great loss for every publication that previously had used art because there is a distinction and a dramatic vibrancy to drawings that is completely lost in just one more photograph. I recall once applying for press credentials at the United Nations and the lady said, \u2018I have 500 photographers, registered, what on earth do you think you can do?\u2019 I said, \u2018Madam, they are going to be up in the photo gallery. They\u2019re all going to be confined, aren\u2019t they.\u2019 And she said, \u2018Yes they are, with various lengths of telephoto lenses and so on.\u2019 I said, \u2018But in my mind, I can be anywhere on that floor, and by contrast alone my graphics are going to stand out.\u2019 She said, \u2018That’s good enough for me.\u2019 And subsequently Business Week used it as a cover and five pages of drawings. So it was wonderful.\u201d

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JP: \u201cUndoubtedly, there\u2019s going to be a lot of people who will not have work. There will be a homogenization\u2014on the scene, in the courtroom\u2014by a film, which I consider one of the lowest common denominators of recognizability. But there’s also the ultimate control which shifts from the artist, his perceptions\u2014his totality, everything he brings to his craft at that moment\u2014shifts to a photo editor who then sifts through film\u2014comes in a canister, is developed, presented at the desk\u2014he decides what best illustrates the story.

\u201cAnd as it was bought out in a symposium the other evening at the Players Club, given us\u2014courtroom artists\u2014through the courtesy of The Players Club, Tom Puccio and Chris Cornell. This man, one of the press representatives said, \u2018We will argue passionately for our right to have the camera in the courtroom. The people’s right to know will be number one on our agenda.\u2019 He said, \u2018In actuality, of course, once we\u2019re there and the producer decides that nothing is truly informative or entertaining, nothing will be shown. But we will have accomplished our goal, and too bad for the artist.\u2019 Well it’s too bad for everyone, because the artist has so much at his command that once it is gone it will be just one more photograph.\u201d

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City of New York Proclamation on reportorial courtroom art, November 30, 1987<\/em>

LL: \u201cWell actually artists have been fighting\u2014illustrators anyway\u2014have been fighting a losing battle for quite a while. In the late thirties, magazine covers went from being drawn to being photographed, and little by little we have seen our ads become more and more photographs\u2014 virtually everything where the artist dominated in the past has become one kind of picture or another\u2014usually because it\u2019s cheaper. I don\u2019t know how you compare with a photographer\u2014I\u2019d imagine that, just because of the length of time it takes you to do three or four drawings that you’ve got to be a bit more expensive than somebody who brings in six rolls of black-and-white film and just snaps away every ten seconds.\u201d

JP: \u201cWell, you’re probably right. What with all the motorized drives and magazines and all the rest, undoubtedly out of this will come something usable and it will be cheap and economical, which is, of course, I don’t know, it seems to me that if one wants quality, if one wants distinction, one should be willing to pay for it. On staff at the News they have a choice\u2014they could use a drawing if they wish, or they can let it go, and nothing, ever a photograph, nothing will appear\u2014it\u2019s as though no story was covered.\u201d

LL: \u201cIn the Howard Beach trial the judge has forbid photographers from coming into the courtroom (JP: \u201cyes, thank God\u201d), Is that going to happen a bit, do you think there\u2019ll be that odd case where a judge will just keep them out, or in time do you think they\u2019ll all just cave in.\u201d

JP: \u201cThe judge initially ruled that the camera was intrusive. The way they set it up it was physically intrusive and dominated a large area directly in front of the jury box. The trial is a very tenuous thing\u2014it’s full of emotion\u2014and there\u2019s all sorts of flashpoints. I think the Judge did a marvelous thing by sticking by his guns. I sent him a picture, showing him gesticulating, as he often does, in an effort to keep order in his courtroom. I said, \u2018Judge, think of the boy whose finger was in the dike and stand firm, for God’s sake\u2019 and he did.\u201d

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Joseph Papin, Daily News, December 11, 1987<\/em>

JP: \u201cBut I can recall going to the von Bulow trial, the first one\u2014and when I appeared, Judge Needham invited me back to his chambers and I said, \u2018Judge, there\u2019s certainly very little for me to do here with you having that still camera out there and the television camera.\u2019 He said, \u2018Son, any darn fool can have a photograph, get to work.\u2019 And I loved it.\u201d

LL: \u201cHe called you son.\u201d

JP: \u201cPardon?\u201d

LL: \u201cHe called you son.\u201d

JP: \u201cYes indeed. Well I thought he was a marvelous judge, as I instantly fell in love with the woman the other day from France who was here observing the Howard Beach trial. I asked her about the issue of cameras and she said, \u2018Well of course. At the Barbie trial we have cameras for the state archives, but for the people, we have artists.\u2019\u201d

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Joseph Papin, Daily News, May 7, 1982<\/em>

LL: \u201cWell you, as the artist for the Daily News for many years, have covered all of the most famous trials. Maybe we can go to the Patty Hearst trial first, that\u2019s the one that you described to a member of our staff as \u2018six weeks of pure fantasy.\u2019\u201d

JP: \u201cEight, eight weeks.\u201d

LL: \u201cEight weeks.\u201d

JP: \u201cEight weeks. It was fantastic.\u201d

LL: \u201cWhy is that?\u201d

JP: \u201cWell first of all it was in San Francisco. It was eight weeks free of anyone second guessing what they want, how they want it, so on and so forth. It was eight weeks relying on one\u2019s own professional judgment. I had a little telecopier, and no drawing to be bigger than an 8 x 10 sheet of paper but I drew with superimposures\u2014as an artist can do\u2014telescoping those things that were going on. And every day and every night F. Lee Bailey held a press conference saying how magnificent things were going to be when Patty was free, by virtue of his own artistry.\u201d

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Patty Hearst Trial, Joseph Papin Courtroom Illustration Collection, Library of Congress # PR 13 CN 2015:128.4112 (Daily News, 2-14-1976)<\/em>

JP: \u201cThe judge was old and ailing and often fell asleep about mid-morning. When awakened, by either Al Johnson, Bailey’s partner, or someone making loud noises, he would instantly say that the press had better keep quiet (chuckle) or he was going to clear the courtroom.\u201d

LL: \u201cIt sounds like a fair trial.\u201d

JP: \u201cOh it was beyond belief! Because, I didn\u2019t really know that people could live so well\u2014so many could live so well. Not only that, but the SLA, which turned out to be eight or nine middle class kids and one black guy, was termed at that point \u2018a national army\u2019 capable of having\u2014when a car couldn\u2019t be found, the FBI fellow out there said that a chop shop run by the SLA had cut it up.\u201d

JP: \u201cBut it was so fantastic that, it was just, it marks one of the more incredible highlights, and eight weeks with only one assignment is a magnificent thing too.\u201d

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From the “Scenes of Life by Joe Papin” article, Ken Atkins, The Denton-Record Chronicle, June 1, 1979<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n


(Text box in the photo above reads:)

\u201c\u2019A miracle worker\u2019 was how one reporter [Theo Wilson] described Joe Papin\u2019s work at the Patty Heart bank robbery trial. Patty herself was so impressed with his drawings, that she had her father, Randolph Hearst, to commission Papin to provide her with daily drawings also. In the drawing at the top right, Catherine, Randolph, Anne and Vicky Hearst look on from the gallery. In the lower right drawing, Patty refuses to answer U.S. attorney James Browning\u2019s questions, as defense attorneys Albert Johnson and F. Lee Bailey stand by her. At left, Bailey and Browning are surrounded by cameramen and reporters at a press conference.”

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Patty Hearst Trial, News Pix cover, Joseph Papin, 1976.<\/em>


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Interview by Leonard Lopate, New York and Company, Aired on December 14, 1987 (Transcribed and illustrated using Joseph Papin\u2019s work, J Papin, 2021) Joseph Papin, F. Donald Nixon testifying at the conspiracy trial of John Mitchell and Maurice Stans, 1974Joseph Papin\u2019s drawing of the Mitchell Stans trial (reproduced above and drawn from his seat at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,108],"tags":[125,130,31,36,9,132,122,131,15,14,13],"class_list":["post-854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-joseph-papin-interview","category-nyc-trials","tag-courtroom-art","tag-courtroom-illustration","tag-daily-news","tag-joe-papin","tag-joseph-papin","tag-leonard-lopate","tag-library-of-congress","tag-new-york-and-company","tag-new-york-city","tag-on-the-scene-drawing","tag-reportorial-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":891,"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephpapin.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}