Ashley Bryan
| Ashley Bryan | |
|---|---|
Ashley Bryan in 2007
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|
| Born |
July 13, 1923 New York, New York, USA |
| Occupation | Writer, illustrator, college teacher |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | African American |
| Education | Cooper Union School of Art. Advanced degrees : Columbia University, New York, University of Marseilles(Aix-en-Provence), University of Freiburg (Germany). |
| Alma mater | Cooper Union school |
| Genre | children's picture books |
| Subject | African American studies |
| Notable works |
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| Notable awards |
Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal 2009 Virginia Hamilton Award 2012 |
Ashley F. Bryan (born July 13, 1923) is an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Most of his subjects are from the African American experience. He was U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006 and he won the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for his contribution to American children's literature in 2009. Ashley Bryan's Freedom Over Me was short-listed for the 2016 Kirkus Prize and received a Newbery Honor.
Bryan was born in Harlem and raised in the Bronx (both in New York City). His father worked as a printer of greeting cards and loved birds. Bryan once counted a hundred caged birds in his childhood home. He grew up with six brothers and sisters and three cousins. Bryan recalls his childhood in New York during the 1930s as an idyllic time, full of art and music. He learned to draw, paint, and play instruments at school from artists and musicians participating in the Work Projects Administration program. With books he checked out of the library, Bryan made his own, temporary collection at home. He particularly enjoyed poetry, folktales, and fairy tales; stories that could be told within a brief span of pages.
Bryan attended the Cooper Union Art School, the only African-American student 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 into the U.S. Army and assigned to serve in a segregated unit as a member of a Port Battalion, landing at Omaha Beach on D -Day .. 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.
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