Ida Libby Dengrove; NBC Courtroom artist
Hyfler/Rosner
Ida Libby Dengrove, 86, Portraitist of the Courtroom, Dies
By WOLFGANG SAXON NY Times
Ida Libby Dengrove, a New York courtroom artist who
visualized the moods and faces of some notorious trials for
the television audience, died on Wednesday while on a family
visit to Los Angeles. She was 86 and lived in Ocean
Township, N.J.
The cause was complications of Alzheimer's disease, her
family said.
A portrait painter away from court, Mrs. Dengrove worked as
a courtroom illustrator for NBC-TV from 1973 to 1986. It
allowed her to take her sketch pad where cameras were
forbidden and capture the proceedings in her own distinctive
style.
Her pictorial reportage won two Emmy awards. She was cited
for her newscast illustrations of the sensational Son of Sam
trial of David Berkowitz (1977-78), and again for the Murder
at the Met trial (1980-81) of Craig S. Crimmins, the
stagehand convicted of slaying a young violinist, Helen
Hagnes Mintiks.
She sketched the principals in the trial of Jean Harris for
the murder of Dr. Herman Tarnower and documented court
appearances by John Lennon, Senator Harrison A. Williams
Jr., John W. Hinckley Jr., John J. Gotti and Gen. William C.
Westmoreland, to name a few. Some of her sketches, meant for
television, also turned up on the front pages of newspapers.
Ida Libby Leibovitz was born in Philadelphia, where she
later graduated, in 1940, from Moore College of Art and
Design. She taught art in the city's public school system
until World War II, which she spent touring the United
States for the U.S.O., sketching servicemen.
Later in her career, she taught again and lectured at
various colleges and organizations.
Mrs. Dengrove's husband of 64 years, Dr. Edward Dengrove, a
psychiatrist, died in 2003. She is survived by two sons,
Richard A., of Arlington, Va., and Robert S., of Ocean
Township; a daughter, Lois Ann, of Los Angeles; and four
granddaughters.
Mrs. Dengrove herself fell victim to a crime in 1982. Eighty
of her courtroom sketches were mounted in a lobby show at
the United States Court House at Foley Square, a gallery of
the famous in a place normally brimming with guards and
federal marshals.
Yet one Monday morning, a portrait of John Lennon and Yoko
Ono was gone from its place high up on a wall. She had
caught the couple in pastel in 1975, when deportation
charges against Lennon were dropped, and - her usual
procedure - had kept the original after it was taped for
broadcast.
"They took it like they took the Mona Lisa," she noted at
the time. "They removed it from the frame and left the frame
and mat on the lobby floor."
"Somebody must have climbed on a chair," she said.
Hyfler/Rosner
"Hyfler/Rosner" <rel...@rcn.com> wrote in message
news:C7udnYZeTtz...@rcn.net...
> April 16, 2005
> Ida Libby Dengrove, 86, Portraitist of the Courtroom, Dies
> By WOLFGANG SAXON NY Times
>
> Her pictorial reportage won two Emmy awards. She was cited
> for her newscast illustrations of the sensational Son of
> Sam trial of David Berkowitz (1977-78),
Another obit which has her Son of Sam illustration:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050414/NEWS01/504140367/1004/NEWS01
DGH
Ida Libby Dengrove.
L