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Brourman has become known for her courtroom sketches of celebrity defendants, particularly during theJohnny Depp-Amber Heard trial. More recently Brourman spent months elegantly documenting the drama inside New York City’s federal immigration court and was the subject ofa profile inVanity Fairin October.

Brourman and Nuzzi first met in New York during Donald Trump’s criminal trial, where Brourman was sketching for New York Magazine. “Jerry Saltz introduced us,” Brourman said, explaining that they initially crossed paths in the overflow room during jury selection. The two weren’t working closely at the time—Brourman was drawing, Nuzzi was reporting—but seeing their work appear side-by-side forged a connection that deepened later, once both were traveling the country on campaign-trail assignments.

How to Disappear was commissioned months before Vanity Fair made the decision to feature the work in the December issue alongside an excerpt fromNuzzi’s new book “American Canto” which will also be available on Dec 2. The book’s impending release has led to a fresh wave of scrutiny and media attention—an onslaught that began with the fallout from her “sexting” relationship with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which led to herdeparture from New York magazine in 2024. 

The portrait, however, is a more elegant depiction of Nuzzi and the whirlwind that surrounds her. A blonde woman, nude, with eyes closed, stands at the center, while Americana-drenched symbols swirl around her, through her, and reflect off her bare skin. It will be on view next month during Art Basel Miami Beach, as part of Jeffery Deitch’s presentation “The Great American Nude.”

According to Brourman, the idea of painting Nuzzi emerged gradually as the journalist was writing her book. “I had wanted to paint her for a while,” she said. The portrait became part of a larger project exploring what Brourman calls “the aftermath,” a period she associates with suspended time—first in her Trump portrait and now in Nuzzi’s. “With both of them, something huge had happened, and there was this question of what would come next,” she said, noting that she left deliberate areas of blank space in Nuzzi’s canvas to reflect that in-between state. 

The making of the portrait also came with logistical drama. Brourman and Nuzzi retrieved the large blank canvas from downtown Los Angeles in Nuzzi’s convertible, only realizing on the highway that it barely fit. “I was terrified it was going to parachute out of the car,” Brourman said. The pair eventually improvised—lowering the top, laying the canvas across the car like a temporary roof, then closing the top over it before driving it home. “We sat under the blank canvas and drove it back,” she said.

The canvas will be on the road again soon, this time to Miami. “I am excited to exhibit Isabelle Brourman’s portrait of Olivia Nuzzi in The Great American Nude, our project for Art Basel Miami Beach,” Deitch toldARTnews via text message. “The curation is inspired by an iconic Tom Wesselmann painting,The Great American Nude VIIIwhich is the featured work in our presentation. I admire how Isabelle has transformed and expanded the courtroom sketch into a new realm of portraiture. It is uncanny how her portrait of Olivia echos the Wesselmann. She has portrayed Olivia as today’s Great American Nude.”

The turbulence surged again this month when her former fiancé, journalist Ryan Lizza, published two lengthy Substack installments detailing their breakup and alleging parallel affairs, including one with former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford. His disclosures revived earlier questions about Nuzzi’s entanglements with political subjects and reignited debate around conflicts of interest. 

According to the media criticism newsletterStatus,the portrait arrives at a moment of internal frustration atVanity Fair. Staffers toldStatus‘s media correspondent Natalie Korach, who untilSeptember of this year worked atVanity Fair, that Nuzzi has allegedly skipped routine meetings, missed assignments, and produced little editorial work as the scandals have intensified. New editorial director Mark Guiducci has reportedly addressed the newsroom repeatedly, fielding concerns while acknowledging that the allegation happened five years ago while Nuzzi worked atNew York Magazine.

As Condé Nast weighs its next steps, the yet-unseen portrait has already become another part of the story—a portrait commissioned in calmer waters, now surfacing in the middle of a storm. Conde Nast did not answer a request for comment on the work before publication.