Ashley Frederick Bryan (1923-2022) celebrated teacher, author, and artist, passed on February 4, 2022. He was 98 years old. Artistically, Ashley’s work was as varied as his stories. His accomplished draughtsmanship is evident whether using pencil or pen to create drawings that range from meticulous renderings of the object to vibrant celebrations of linear movement and energy. His linoleum block prints, in emulation of medieval woodcuts, were often reprised in colorful paintings that impart a similar visual intensity. He created puppets for his storytelling from the found objects salvaged from walks on the island; he also returned to one of the earliest forms of visual narrative in the stained-glass windows he fashioned from scavenged sea glass and papier-mâché.
Ashley committed himself to filling the void of Black representation by creating children’s books about the African and African American experience. He published over seventy books – most of his own creation, as well as illustrating texts of other eminent authors such as Nikki Giovanni, Nikki Grimes, Langston Hughes, and Paul Laurence Dunbar to name a few. Ashley traveled tirelessly to conferences, festivals, museums, and universities and visited children in schools in the United States and Africa. He was beloved by teachers and librarians for expanding the literary landscape.
Ashley was the second of six children who were later joined by three cousins in his family’s crowded Bronx, New York apartment. His parents were immigrants from the island of Antigua. Ashley began drawing and painting as a small boy. A printer by trade, his father was able to supply Ashley with left-over special papers for Ashley’s endless flow of artwork and drawings.