Using a graphite pencil and watercolor paints, MICA alum Art Lien ’76 (General Fine Arts BFA) spent his entire career as a courtroom sketch artist, going where cameras were not allowed and capturing history in the process.

He began sketching courts shortly after his graduation from MICA, covering the fraud trial of former Maryland governor Marvin Mandel for Baltimore news station WJZ. He went on to work for CBS and, later, NBC, sketching the Supreme Court as well as notable federal trials.

While most of Lien’s work focuses on Supreme Court cases — from arguments focused on Obamacare to Fourth Amendment rights — he also sketched the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of perpertrating the Boston Marathon bombing, and the trial of convicted terrorist Timothy McVeigh, who carried out the Oklahoma City bombing. He also sketched for SCOTUS blog, a law blog written by lawyers, law professors, and law students about the Supreme Court.

For more about Lien’s work and career, continue reading at Baltimore Magazine.