Bryan Collier: United States ⋆ Illustrator

"Once you form a sensibility about connection, how different elements relate to each other, you deepen your understanding of yourself and others."

Bryan Collier

Bryan Collier is passionate about creating a voice for young people through artistic expression and powerful imagery, and he has dedicated his life to empowering children and teens through his artistic mediums. Growing up as the youngest of six children in Pocomoke, Maryland, Collier spent his childhood and adolescence not only writing and illustrating stories but also playing football. He declined a football scholarship in order to instead attend Pratt Institute on a talent scholarship, and it was there he pursued both his passion for painting and his dedication to representing African-American experience through artistic expression. While he was still in art school, Collier began volunteering at the Harlem Horizon Studio in New York's Harlem Hospital Center, where he encouraged young people—both patients and the general public—to express themselves and build self-confidence through art.

Collier's style is incredibly unique—often blending painting, drawing, and collage—and much of his most astonishing work is embedded in African-American experience. He attributes his inspiration for his collage work, which incorporates magazine clippings, watercolors, and clippings from his own paintings, to his childhood memories of his grandmother's quilts, and his style evokes the same familiar response in those who engage with his work. Collier spent seven years working to create a foundation for himself in the realm of children's book illustrations, and it was in 2000 that Laura Godwin and Henry Holt encouraged him to write and illustrate his first children's text—Uptown (2000). The book earned both the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award and the Ezra Jack Keats Award for New Talent, and it launched his passion for illustrating children's texts representing African-American experience.

Much of Collier's work depicts African-American history in the United States, and he has illustrated texts on African-American figures such as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Roberto Clemente. He has earned many awards for his illustrations, including five Coretta Scott King Awards and two Caldecott Honors, and he often volunteers his time in schools, where he helps children and teens express their own stories through artistic mediums.