Ashley Bryan. Photo credit: Bill McGuinness

Ashley Bryan, Award-Winning Author and Illustrator , 1923-2022

“Wake up every morning and find the child in you.”

-Ashley Bryan

New York, NY (February 5, 2022)—With tremendous sadness, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing announces the loss of Ashley Bryan, beloved author and illustrator. A celebrated artist, Bryan was the recipient of the Coretta Scott King—Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, several Coretta Scott King Awards, a Newbery Honor, and countless other awards and recognitions. His books include Freedom Over Me; Infinite Hope: A Black Artist’s Journey from World War II to Peace ; Sail Away; Beautiful Blackbird; Beat the Story-Drum, Pum Pum; Let It Shine; and What a Wonderful World. He was also a WWII veteran. Bryan passed away peacefully on February 4, 2022, in Texas, where he had been staying with relatives during the pandemic. He was ninety-eight years old.

Ashley Bryan was born in Harlem, New York in 1923—the second of six children—to Antiguan immigrant parents. He began pursuing art as a teen— and his teachers encouraged him to apply to art school. Despite an impressive portfolio, he was rebuffed by the art schools in the city because they said it would be a waste to give a Black student a scholarship. With his teachers’ guidance, Ashley was accepted at Cooper Union with its blind admissions process. He was the only African American student at that time. In May of 1943, at the age of nineteen, Bryan was drafted out of art school to fight in World War II. For the next three years, Bryan would face the horrors of war as a Black soldier in a segregated army, as detailed in his most recent work, Infinite Hope: A Black Artist's Journey from World War II to Peace— a groundbreaking memoir. Hiding his art materials in his gas mask, Bryan drew everything he experienced, including sketches on Omaha Beach on D-Day. When he returned to the United States, Bryan kept his time as a soldier (and the harsh realities he faced) a secret for over forty years.

Following the war, Bryan attended universities around the world to complete his art studies— including Cooper Union; Columbia University; the Université d’Aix-Marseille in Aix-en-Province in France; and the University of Freiburg in Germany (on a Fulbright grant). He also taught art professionally at New York City’s Dalton School, Queens College, Philadelphia College of Art, and Dartmouth College—always integrating art and poetry into curricula.

Bryan created over seventy children’s books (all published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers) across six decades. An early, quiet, and potent force in bringing children of color and issues of racial diversity into the canon of children’s literature, he was committed to opening the eyes of children of all backgrounds to a wide range of themes through poetry, folktales, spirituals, and biblical narratives.

He received Coretta Scott King Awards for multiple books, including Beat the Story Drum: Pum-Pum, a rhythmic picture book of five Nigerian folktales; Beautiful Blackbird, a Zambian folktale illustrated in paper collage. His collage work has been compared to Matisse’s. He also received a Coretta Scott King honor and a Newbery Honor for Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life , a powerful exploration of slavery, for which Bryan used original slave auction and plantation estate documents.

Bryan also received the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award and the Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2008, was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library (along with renowned writers Edward Albee, Nora Ephron, and Salman Rushdie).

The children of Kenya held a special place in Ashley’s heart; for decades he travelled there for months at a time to help build schools and libraries, earning the beloved nickname “LongPapa.”

Bryan’s longtime editor, Caitlyn Dlouhy, Vice President and Publisher at Atheneum’s Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, said, “The gifts Ashley gave us through his art, his poetry, his books, his endless encouragement to relish the moment, are forever bright lights in our world. But his innate unwavering belief in the beauty of everything, the value of everything, that he instilled in us all is truly immeasurable.”

Ashley Bryan called Islesford on Little Cranberry Island, Maine home for six decades. There, in addition to his painting, linoleum block prints in emulation of medieval woodcuts, and collage work, he created marvelous hand puppets for his storytelling out of found objects salvaged from sea, and extraordinary stained-glass windows he fashioned from scavenged sea glass and papier mâché. His artwork can be found in several locations on the island, and in 2020, he was honored by Maine governor Janet Mills, who proclaimed July 13^th “Ashley Frederick Bryan Day” for his lifetime contributions to the state.” The Ashley Bryan Center was founded in 2013 in Isleford, Maine with the mission “to preserve, celebrate, and share broadly artist Ashley Bryan’s work and his joy of discovery, invention, learning, and community.” The Center has donated a bulk of Bryan’s archives to the Kislak Center for Special Collections at the University of Pennsylvania and is also in the process of distributing paintings to Maine institutions and beyond. Through Bryan’s work, his spirit will endure. 

Ashley Bryan is survived by his brother Ernest, and many cherished nieces and nephews.

There will be a Memorial Service held on Islesford, Maine on July 13, 2022, which would have been Ashley’s 99th birthday. Friends and fans of Bryan are invited to share memories and notes via the Ashley Bryan Center website. Contributions can also be made to the Ashley Bryan Center in memory of Ashley. Gifts will be used for the expansion and upkeep of The Storyteller Pavillion, a centerpiece of Bryan’s legacy.

Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, one of the leading children’s book publishers in the world, comprises the following imprints: Aladdin, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, Beach Lane Books, Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, Denene Millner Books, Libros para niños, Little Simon®, Margaret K. McElderry Books, Paula Wiseman Books, Salaam Reads, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, and Simon Spotlight®. While maintaining an extensive award-winning backlist, the division continues to publish acclaimed and bestselling books for children of all ages. Simon & Schuster publishes numerous Caldecott, Newbery, and National Book Award winners. For more information about Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.