ExhibitionsPainter and Poet: The Wonderful World of Ashley Bryan
Past Exhibition

Painter and Poet: The Wonderful World of Ashley Bryan

April 1, 2017 – January 21, 2018

Author and artist Ashley Bryan’s remarkable career spans half a century, during which time he has published more than fifty titles. This exhibition celebrates his work and showcases the breadth of his creative output.

 

All creatures GREAT and small, 2009

Final illustration for All Things Bright and Beautiful (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2010)
Cut-paper collage on paper
Collection of the Ashley Bryan Center

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The birds’ colors were mirrored in the waters, ca. 2002

Cut-paper collage on paper
Final illustration for Beautiful Blackbird (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2003)
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts. Gift of the artist in memory of Trinkett ClarkIn 2003, Bryan expanded his repertoire to include collage in Beautiful Blackbird, a story from Zambia. Blackbird shares his gifts by giving each bird “a touch of black.” He then demonstrates the importance of inclusion, diversity, and self-worth, saying, “Just remember, whatever I do, I’ll be me and you’ll be you.” Bryan notes, “It means a lot to me to open up aspects of black culture to people. I hope that my work with the African tales will be … like a bridge reaching across distances of time and space.”

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Cover Vignette for The Dancing Granny, 1977

Final illustration for The Dancing Granny (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1977)
Ink and brush on paper
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts. Gift of the artist

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The Negro Speaks of Rivers, 2014

Final illustration for Sail Away: Poems by Langston Hughes (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2015)
Cut-paper collage on paper
Collection of the Ashley Bryan Center

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Mrs. Chicken and the Hungry Crocodile, 1998

Final illustration for Why Leopard Has Spots (Fulcrum Publishing, 1998)
Linoleum cut on rice paper
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts. Gift of the artistAshley Bryan is one of the earliest tellers of African tales in picture-book form. His opportunity to illustrate an anthology of African folktales in the 1940s did not come to fruition, but it did result in a rich body of work. When his editor asked Bryan to illustrate a collection of African folktales, he responded that he didn’t like the way the stories were written. The editor encouraged him to tell the stories in his own style.

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Cover Vignette for The Dancing Granny, 1977

Final illustration for The Dancing Granny (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 1977)
Ink and brush on paper
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts. Gift of the artist

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$300 Stephan age 32, 2015

Final illustration for Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2016)
Mixed-media collage, diluted tempera, and felt-tip pen on paper
Collection of the Ashley Bryan CenterYears ago, Ashley Bryan purchased a trove of slavery-related documents. It included a bill of sale from an estate that listed eleven enslaved people for sale along with farm animals and material assets. Through his moving free-verse poetry and meticulously rendered portraits, Bryan restored the humanity that had been so cruelly stripped from these people. The document listed only a name and a price for each person; Bryan imagined their histories and dreams for the future. Freedom Over Me was awarded a Newbery Honor, a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor for 2017.

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Stephan Dreams, 2015

Final illustration for Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life by Ashley Bryan (Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2016)
Diluted tempera and felt-tip pen on paper
Collection of the Ashley Bryan Center

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Rocking Jerusalem, 1974

Final illustration for Walk Together Children: Black American Spirituals (Atheneum Books, 1974)
Linoleum cut on rice paper
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts. Gift of the artistBryan recalls: “One of my earliest memories was of my mother singing. My father loved birds … and played a number of instruments.” With the birds trilling, his mother singing, and the general music making that went on in his childhood home, it is only natural that the rhythms of music and movement have emerged in Bryan’s illustrations, like this block print from a book of spirituals.

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Overview

Artist, author, and educator Ashley Bryan (American, born 1923) says he can’t remember a time when he was not drawing and painting. His unending creative zeal has fueled a long and prolific career.
At a young age, Bryan noticed the lack of children’s books with African American characters. Bryan is committed to filling the void in black representation by creating books about the African and African American experiences.
Bryan’s art is as varied as his stories. His accomplished draftsmanship is evident, whether he is drawing with pencil to create meticulous renderings, printing with cut linoleum to make vibrant celebrations of linear movement, or using tempera in colorful paintings that simulate his block prints and impart a similar visual intensity. In addition to his works on paper, Bryan also creates puppets from found objects and returns to one of the earliest forms of visual narrative in the stained-glass windows he fashions from sea glass and papier-mâché.
This exhibition showcases the breadth and depth of Bryan’s creative output, from the dynamic figure drawings he made while serving as a soldier in World War II, to his first published book in 1967, to his 2016 book Freedom Over Me, awarded a Newbery Honor, Coretta Scott King Author Honor, and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor.
About Ashley Bryan

Born in 1923, Ashley Bryan grew up in the Bronx during the Great Depression. His parents emigrated from Antigua in the Caribbean and settled in New York after the First World War. Bryan began making books at the age of six and has never stopped. Trips to the public library—where he sought out folktales, fairy tales, novels, biographies, and poetry—fueled his passion for storytelling. There were, however, few opportunities to identify with African Americans, a problem Bryan determined to address in his work.
Drawing helped Bryan maintain his humanity, even when drafted from art school into a segregated unit of the U.S. Army during World War II, where he served in the D-Day invasion. Bryan later studied philosophy at Columbia University, won a Fulbright scholarship to study in Germany, and taught art in high schools and universities. In the summer of 1946, while attending Maine’s Skowhegan School of Art, he visited Acadia National Park and saw the Cranberry Isles; he has called this island community home for the past sixty years.
Bryan illustrated a volume of poems by the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore in 1967. That book, Moon, for What Do You Wait? became Bryan’s first published book. He has continued publishing books ever since, now with more than fifty titles to his name.
Puppets
Stop by our Greene Family Learning Gallery and create your own story with Ashley Bryan’s characters. Six puppets inspired by the artwork of Ashley Bryan are ready for your imagination. The puppets were created for us by our friends at the Center for Puppetry Arts.
Ashley Bryan holding Beautiful Blackbird puppet

Painter and Poet: The Wonderful World of Ashley Bryan is organized by The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, Massachusetts, in partnership with the Ashley Bryan Center.
Support for the High Museum’s presentation is provided by the Lettie Pate Evans Foundation and the Inaugural Grandparents Circle of Support: Spring and Tom Asher, Jane and Dameron Black, Lucinda W. Bunnen, Anne Cox Chambers, Ann and Tom Cousins, Shearon and Taylor Glover, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr., Joy and Tony Greene, Ellen and Tom Harbin, Mary Ellen and John Imlay, Sarah and Jim Kennedy, Jane and Hicks Lanier, Rene and Jim Nalley, Margaret and Terry Stent, Margaretta Taylor, and an anonymous donor.
This exhibition is made possible by

Major Funding

Premier Exhibition Series PartnerExhibition Series SponsorsPremier Exhibition Series SupportersAnne Cox Chambers Foundation, The Antinori Foundation, Ann and Tom Cousins, Sarah and Jim Kennedy, Jane and Hicks Lanier, Louise Sams and Jerome GrilhotContributing Exhibition Series SupportersBarbara and Ron Balser, Corporate Environments, Peggy Foreman, James F. Kelly Charitable Trust, Jane Smith Turner Foundation, The Lubo Fund, Margot and Danny McCaul, Joyce and Henry SchwobGenerous support is also provided byAlfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, Howell Exhibition Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund
Contributing Exhibition Series SupportersBarbara and Ron Balser, Corporate Environments, Peggy Foreman, James F. Kelly Charitable Trust, Jane Smith Turner Foundation, The Lubo Fund, Margot and Danny McCaul, Joyce and Henry Schwob
Generous support is also provided byAlfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, Howell Exhibition Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund