The ArtCenter Library is honored to present an evening with Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrator, Medar de la Cruz. Medar is a Brooklyn-based artist and ArtCenter alum (BFA 16 Illustration).

Medar de la Cruz, a Dominican-American artist, was born in Miami, Florida. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and works as a freelance artist and illustrator. Medar has created works for the New York Times and The New Yorker. Medar's bold and evocative illustrations delve deep into themes of social justice and the human experience, harnessing the transformative power of comics to ignite change. According to Medar, his “images are defined by how the boldly drawn lines are always in constant movement.”

Throughout his five years at ArtCenter, Medar worked at the ArtCenter Library as a Library Assistant. Medar was a zine intern for ArtCenter's inaugural federally funded Institute of Museum and Library Service (IMLS) grant. He helped coordinate and eventually learned to teach zine workshops. He later took those skills to the Pasadena Public Library where he taught a zine workshop and helped design the first teen zine cover for the Pasadena Public Library.

While working as a Library Assistant and Outreach Coordinator for the Brooklyn Public Library, one of Medar’s job duties was to provide books through a mobile library to incarcerated inmates at Rikers Island. In May 2023, Medar documented his experience at Rikers Island for a piece in the New Yorker. His bold and powerful imagery provided a brief and unique look into life at Rikers Island, and Medar won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize in Illustrated Reporting and Commentary for his piece, The Diary of a Rikers Island Library Worker.