Ashley F. Bryan (born July 13, 1923, New York, New York) is an American author and illustrator noted for his children's books. His subjects most often are from the African-American experience.
Bryan was born in Harlem and raised in the Bronx. His father worked as a printer of greeting cards. He loved birds. Bryan once counted a hundred caged birds in his childhood home. Bryan grew up with six brothers and sisters and three cousins. Bryan recalled his childhood in New York the 1930s as an idyllic time, full of art and music. He excelled in school, graduating from high school at the age sixteen.
Bryan attended the Cooper Union Art School, one of the few African-American students at that time to be awarded a scholarship. He had applied to other schools who had rejected him on the basis of race, but Cooper Union administered its scholarships in a blind test: “You put your work in a tray, sculpture, drawing, painting, and it was judged. They never saw you. If you met the requirements, tuition was free, and it still is to this day,” explained Bryan.
At the age of nineteen, World War II interrupted his studies. He was drafted and assigned to serve as a porter in Europe. He was so ill-suited to this work that his fellow soldiers often encouraged him to step aside and draw. He always kept a sketch pad in his gas mask.
When he returned to New York, he exhibited the drawings he'd made as a soldier. He then went on to Columbia University to study philosophy. He wanted to understand war. After the war, Bryan received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Europe.
He was not published until he was forty years old. In 1962, he was the first African American to publish a children's book as an author and illustrator. “I never gave up. Many were more gifted than I but they gave up. They dropped out. What they faced out there in the world--they gave up.”
In the 1980s, when Bryant retired from Dartmouth, he moved to Maine. In addition to writing and illustration he also enjoys making puppets, building stained glass windows from beach glass, creating papier mache, and making collages.
His books have won several awards in children's literature, including the Coretta Scott King Award, the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award from the Pennsylvania State University, and the Lupine Award from the Maine Library Association. Bryan himself also received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for achievement in children's literature and the University of Southern Mississippi Medallion from the Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival.
1981 Coretta Scott King Award Winner for outstanding illustration in Beat the Story Drum, Pum-Pum
1983 Coretta Scott King Award Honor for outstanding illustration in I'm Going to Sing: Black American Spirituals
1987 Coretta Scott King Award Honor for outstanding author in Lion and the Ostrich Chicks and Other African Folk Tales
1987 Coretta Scott King Award Honor for outstanding illustration in Lion and the Ostrich Chicks and Other African Folk Tales
1988 Coretta Scott King Award Honor for outstanding illustration in What a Morning! The Christmas Story in Black Spirituals
1992 Coretta Scott King Award Honor for outstanding illustration in All Night, All Day: A Child's First Book of African American Spirituals
1998 Coretta Scott King Award Honor for outstanding illustration in Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry
2004Coretta Scott King Award Winner for outstanding illustration in Beautiful Blackbird
2005: The Atlanta literary festival was named for him.
2008 Coretta Scott King Award Winner for outstanding illustration in Let it Shine: Three Favorite Spirituals
2009: Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for substantial and lasting contributions to children's literature
