Remarkable Figures: Women in the Art of Ashley Bryan

Peggy Dreams

On the Naming Day ceremony
my parents named me
Mariama, "Gift of God."
My parents calling
"Mariama! Mariama"
sings on in me.

Hand-painted box

This box was created for and originally given to Bryan's friend and fellow Cooper Union student Eva Brussel [Mason]. He made it while stationed in France during and immediately following World War II.

Six sketches of the Dancing Granny

The Dancing Granny is the story of Granny Anika, who can’t resist dancing when Spider Ananse sings his songs. Once he gets Granny dancing, he uses his sway over her to steal the vegetables growing in her garden. However, Granny gets her revenge when she pulls Spider to her with her hoe and makes him her dancing partner.

Dressing the Loom

Before the sun, Aneesa rises
To quickly dress herself
And dress the loom
That crowds her tiny room.

Letter W: poetry by Mari Evans [preliminary version]

Who
Can be born black
and not
sing
the wonder of it
the joy
the
challenge

Who
can be born
black
and not exult!

Letter Q: poetry by Maya Angelou [preliminary version]

My hair, a hive of honey bees.
Is a Queenly glory
Crackles like castanets
Hums like marimbas

Sarah Bryan

Sarah Bryan was Ashley Bryan’s beloved grandmother on his father’s side. There are many drawings of her in the Ashley Bryan Archive.

Freedom Over Me

Freedom Over Me recreates the lives and dreams of eleven slaves, whose names or descriptions, in the case of “one Boy more” and Peggy’s “child,” turned up on an 1828 appraisal of the estate of Cado Fairchilds. Ashley Bryan purchased the document twenty years before he wrote and illustrated this profoundly moving work. He gives each of these enslaved individuals faces and voices, reflecting their struggles and their hopes. Three of the women, Betty, Mulvina, and Peggy, are highlighted in this exhibition.

Mulvina, age 58

I’m not as strong
as I once was,
but my singing voice
is as strong as ever.

Mulvina dreams

In my African village
I heard the chant of
my African name,
“Niami! Niami!
It sounded like
the melody that it means.

Fairchild estate appraisal document

This is the original estate appraisal, the primary slavery document used in Freedom Over Me. It served as the basis for the story Bryan creates, giving life to each of the characters. The names of nine of the slaves in the book—Peggy, Charlotte, Stephen, Mulvina, Jane, Athelia, Qush, Bacus, and Betty—are found on this document. The remaining names, Dora and John, were given by Bryan to unnamed children mentioned in the appraisal.

Betty, age 36

I am special flower gardener
to the Fairchild’s estate.
I do the regular cleaning
in the Big House.
Under Mrs. Fairchild’s direction I set the flower arrangements,
help with all interior décor.

Betty dreams

As I work
gardening for owners,
I am thinking
if I were free,
I would acquire my own
acres of land.

Ashley Bryan's ABC of African American Poetry

Ashley Bryan’s love of poetry is intertwined with his love of art, as can be seen throughout his work. Here he uses the alphabet “to introduce a world of poetry and art to all children.” The illustrations give the passages Bryan has chosen a visual element that complement the aural. A handful of important African American women poets—Maya Angelou, Mari Evans, Eloise Greenfield, Audre Lord, and Margaret Walker—are shown in this exhibition.

Letter M: poetry by Margaret Walker [preliminary version]

My grandmothers were strong.
They followed plows and bent to toil.
They moved through fields sowing seed.
They touched earth and grain grew.
They were full of sturdiness and singing.
My grandmothers were strong.

Letters M and N: poetry by Margaret Walker and Owen Dodson

Final version as reproduced in Ashley Bryan’s ABC of African American Poetry

Letter H: poetry by Eloise Greenfield [preliminary version]

Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff
Wasn’t scared of nothing neither
Didn’t come in this work to be no slave
And wasn’t going to stay one either

Letter X: poetry by Audre Lorde [preliminary version]

Without eXpectations
there is no end
to the shock of morning
or even a small summer.

The Dancing Granny

Bryan’s images of women reflect their strength and determination while simultaneously revealing his love and admiration of them, young and old alike.

As Granny Anika, the Dancing Granny, admits, “ ‘Brother Ananse sings the danciest tunes. I just can’t stay still when the music sweets me so. That I know.’ ”

Sarah Bryan

Bryan’s portraits of his beloved grandmother show a woman whose life is etched on her face and her body.

The Warping Board

To wind yarn enough to make the cloth one plans,
One adds, subtracts, and multiples the strands.
Strokes of luck in weaving are too rare.
Far wiser, then, to plan ahead with care.

Rocking Jerusalem: dust jacket

The print reproduced on the dust jacket of this re-issue is a color version of the print used in the original 1974 edition of Walk Together Children, though not on the original dust jacket. View the linoleum block print of this image.

Beaded Braids

The braided
Beaded lady
Restores soul-color,
Reminding me
Of photographs
In family albums
Patchwork pages
Of old friends:
Ancestral guardians.

Peggy, age 38

I am the Fairchilds’ cook.
I work in the Big House
day in, day out,
making special meals for the
Fairchilds,
plain food for the slaves.

Two Lace Makers of Rouen

Bryan drew the sketch on which this painting was based while in France as a U. S. soldier during and immediately following World War II. The painting was originally given to his friend Eva Brussel [Mason] and then given by her family to Penn Libraries in 2019 to join the Archive.

Rocking Jerusalem: block print

This print is from Bryan’s first book of African American spirituals, Walk Together Children, and was later colored by Bryan for the back cover of a new edition of the work. View the color version reproduced on the dust jacket of the 2002 edition of Walk Together Children.

Somebody's Knocking

This print is from Bryan’s second book of African American spirituals, I'm Going to Sing.