Ashley Bryan

Ashley Bryan was the second of six children who were later joined by three cousins in his family’s crowded Bronx apartment. His parents were descendants of West African slaves from Antigua. A printer by trade, his father was able to supply young Ashley with left-over special papers for his endless flow of artwork and drawings.

Five year old Ashley Bryan’s first book received exuberant praise from his kindergarten teacher and parents, all of whom marveled at his success as “author, illustrator, publisher and distributor” of his very own alphabet book. He continued to hone his drawing skills through free art lessons provided by the Works Progress Administration when he was 10-12. When he later applied for scholarships to art schools at 16, he was told that his portfolios were among the most impressive ever submitted. His applications were denied, however, with the reasoning that “it would be a waste to give a scholarship to a colored person.” Ashley was eventually accepted to the tuition-free Cooper Union School of Art and Engineering in New York City, where entrance evaluations were done “blind.”

In May of 1943, nineteen-year-old Ashley was drafted out of Cooper Union into the segregated 502nd Port Battalion for training as a stevedore. White, mostly southern officers were assigned to Ashley’s company. Their attitudes in dealing with black soldiers were often disrespectful; Ashley discovered that German prisoners received better treatment than the black soldiers. Hiding his art materials in his gas mask, Ashley drew everything he experienced, including sketches on Omaha Beach marked “D-Day plus 3.”

The few soldiers in Ashley’s unit who survived the war came home in "dribs and drabs" as space allowed for the segregation of black soldiers on returning ships. In 1946, Ashley returned to Cooper Union to complete his art studies. He was offered a summer scholarship to the new Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in central Maine, which was attracting the strongest artists in the country. There, Ashley first visited Acadia National Park and viewed the Cranberry Isles, later to become his permanent home.

Ashley studied philosophy and literature at Columbia University on the G.I. bill, then after graduating in 1950, went to France to study art at the Université d’Aix-Marseille in Aix-en-Provence. The following year, exiled world-renowned Catalan cellist Pau (Pablo) Casals, agreed to break his vow of silent protest against Franco’s fascist dictatorship in Spain. Ashley and a group of fellow students traveled from Aix to Prades, France, to hear Casals play in honor of the 200th anniversary of Bach’s death.

The event had a profound influence on Ashley in his own struggle to heal and move on from the war. For the next three years, Ashley returned to Prades for the annual Casals Festivals to hear and sketch the musicians. He has described the experience of drawing the musicians in Prades as an “opening of [his] hand to the rhythms” that would form his signature style in all his artistic expression from then on.

Ashley taught art full-time in the Bronx beginning in 1953, and continued to spend summers on the Cranberry Isles. He returned to Skowhegan in 1956, having won an annual competition to paint one of the frescoed walls in the South Solon Free Meeting House. Other walls were frescoed by Sidney Hurwitz, Sigmund Abeles and others, under the tutelage of Skowhegan founder Henry Varnum Poor, juried by Jacob Lawrence, Ben Shahn and other prominent artists.

Ashley had always loved the German poets, having memorized many of Rilke’s poems in English. He wanted to learn the sound of Rilke’s words spoken in German. In 1957, Ashley headed to the University of Freiburg on a Fulbright grant. At first, Ashley felt isolated, until he found that the vendors in the marketplace accepted him. He would sketch daily scenes of life in the marketplace, returning nightly to his room outside of Freiburg, where he would reinterpret his drawings in paint.

Upon returning from Germany, Ashley took a studio in the Bronx, near his family. He taught at nine or ten different institutions, including the Dalton School, Philadelphia College of Art, and Queens College. Ashley always sought ways to integrate art and poetry into curricula.

Jean Karl, an editor at Atheneum Books, visited Ashley’s studio in 1962 – the start of a nearly four decade-long relationship. Jean sent Ashley a contract to illustrate a collection of poems by Rabindranath Tagore: Moon, for What Do You Wait? Karl had been impressed by the variety of styles she saw in Ashley’s studio, “inspired by the cultures of the world.” In particular, she loved his African folktale illustrations painted in ochre, red and black tempera, evoking African sculptures, masks and rock paintings.

In 1974, Ashley joined the faculty of Dartmouth College’s newly established art department just as Dartmouth was becoming co-ed. He eventually became head of Visual Studies, and he taught all levels of undergraduate courses in drawing, painting and design. Former student Julie Miner recalls the challenges faced by the charter class of Dartmouth women: “It was such an inspiration to see Ashley break down all kinds of barriers – race, gender, and even biases about art itself – in the most gentle way. He made a safe place for individual creativity at Dartmouth.”

Ashley retired from Dartmouth in 1988. He winterized his house on Isleford and became a year-round resident of the Cranberry Isles. In his infinite quest to create art from “things cast off,” he recovered “treasures washed up by the sea” on his daily walks. Ashley crafted more and more fantastic hand-held puppets from bones, shells, drift wood, fishing net, and sea glass, held together with papier maché.

During these years, Ashley dedicated himself to publishing numerous illustrated books in which he strove to bring to life African tales, proverbs and especially spirituals—the songs of the African-American slaves whose only form of free expression was through these enduring popular songs that are rarely given appropriate attribution. Working tirelessly with his editor Jean Karl, Ashley published ten books with Atheneum during this period, and he illustrated another eight books with other publishers.

Ashley’s new editor at Simon & Schuster/Atheneum, Caitlyn Dlouhy, encouraged him to develop one of the stories he had started working on with Jean Karl – a motif from a Zambian tale Ashley had begun with collage illustrations. His new editor loved the figures of the birds Ashley cut from colorful craft paper using his mother’s sewing and needlepoint scissors. Beautiful Blackbird became one of Ashley’s most popular books, winning a Coretta Scott King Book Award in 2004.

2008 was a year of big awards! Let it Shine won Ashley his third Coretta Scott King Award for illustration, and later that year, Ashley was honored as a New York City Library Lion along with esteemed writers Salman Rushdie, Edward Albee and Nora Ephron.

With this recognition, it seemed that the award floodgates opened, as Ashley received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2009, followed by the Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction in 2010 for Words to My Life’s Song and the Coretta Scott King-Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2012. Did he skip a year? No, he did not! In 2011, Ashley received what he considers to be the greatest honor of his life—when residents of the Cranberry Isles voted to rename the school on his beloved Isleford The Ashley Bryan School. Ashley continued to visit the school regularly to read, teach, make art or just hang out with the kids until his death in 2022.

Poet Nikki Giovanni, a collaborator and life-long friend of Ashley’s offered the following poem in his honor, saying, “I know you are not dead until you are forgotten, and Ashley will never be dead.”

An Angel Like Ashley

What does a poem
Look like
Well of course you can read
The words
Or admire the paper
And even wonder why
This metaphor embraced
That simile
But to see a poem
You need
An angel

You may wonder
What a poem tastes like
Yes you can swirl
The batter
Add sugar
An egg (well beaten)
And bake
But to taste a poem
You need an angel

Sometimes you’re cold
Or sad
Or lonely
And you need something
Or someone to comfort
You
And you turn
To a poem
Because an angel
Comes to rub your back

How does a poem
Sound
Like an angel
Blowing a saxophone
Or a vibraharp
Or most likely like Ashley Bryan
Reading to us
From Heaven

Related Exhibitions: Our Voice: Celebrating the Coretta Scott King Awards (2018), Rhythms of the Heart: The Illustration of Ashley Bryan (2009)