On the evening following the acquittal, massive violent public protests-“riots”-broke out, centered in South Central Los Angeles, a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood. Other books containing Diaz’s artwork included Kathleen Krull’s Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman (1996), Joyce Carol Thomas’s The Gospel Cinderella (2000), José-Luis Orozco’s Rin, Rin, Rin/Do, Re, Mi (2005), and Patricia MacLachlan’s (written with her daughter) Before You Came (2011).On April 29, 1992, an almost all-white jury in the almost all-white suburb of Simi Valley acquitted four white Los Angeles Police Department officers of using assault and excessive force in the videotaped beating of a Black man named Rodney King. He worked with Bunting again on a few books, including Going Home (1996), a story of a migrant family spending Christmas back in Mexico, and December (1997), a holiday story highlighting acts of charity and love. She also helped him create hand-assembled limited-edition books to use as promotional pieces.ĭiaz debuted in children’s literature by contributing the illustrations in Gary Soto’s Neighborhood Odes (1992), but it was the bold-colored acrylic paintings and textured collage backgrounds of Smoky Night that brought Diaz national attention. His wife Cecelia, whom he met in an eleventh-grade art class, often worked with him on projects. After a period of financial hardship while trying to get established, he eventually landed corporate clients such as American Express, Benetton, and Pepsico. In 1979 Diaz moved from Florida to California and began seeking design and illustration jobs. Diaz also credited a 1980 German expressionist art show at the Guggenheim Museum and the work of illustrator William Steig with influencing his artwork. His early interest in art was developed further by a high-school teacher who encouraged him to enter competitions and helped him get an apprenticeship with hyperrealist sculptor Duane Hanson. The American Library Association awarded Diaz the 1995 Caldecott Medal for his dramatic, expressionistic paintings in Eve Bunting’s Smoky Night (1994), a book about a child witnessing turmoil in his neighborhood that was inspired by the Los Angeles, California, riots of 1992.ĭiaz was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, either in the late 1950s or in 1960.
American artist and illustrator David Diaz preferred to use bold colors and heavy lines in his work.
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