Carole Byard facts for kids

Carole Marie Byard (born July 22, 1941 – died January 11, 2017) was an amazing American artist. She was a talented illustrator, photographer, and painter. Carole won many awards for her children's books, including a Caldecott Honor and several Coretta Scott King Awards. She loved creating art that showed the lives of Black people and their rich heritage.

Growing Up and School

Carole Byard was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her parents were William "Bunny" Byard and Viola London-Byard. She had an older brother named Michael.

When Carole was very young in 1943, her mother passed away. Her father was also drafted into World War II around that time. Carole was raised by her father and grandmother. Her large extended family was very important to her.

Her father's family came from the Southern African-American tradition. Her mother's family was from the Caribbean, specifically Barbados and Grenada. Her mother was born in Balboa, Panama because her grandfather was working on the Panama Canal.

Carole went to New Jersey Avenue School, then Central Junior High. She graduated from Atlantic City High School. Her high school art teacher, Priscilla Gerard, really encouraged her. Carole earned a four-year scholarship to an art school in Ohio. However, she couldn't go because someone close to her died and her father became ill.

Instead, Carole worked as a simulation pilot near Atlantic City. This job helped her pay for art school. She studied at Fleischer Art Memorial in Philadelphia from 1961 to 1963.

Later, she moved to New York City to live with her youngest aunt. From 1964 to 1968, Carole attended the New York Phoenix School of Design. She focused on illustration there and later even taught at the school. She also learned about lithography, a type of printmaking.

Carole Byard's Art Career

Carole Byard said that when she was a child, she loved reading books. But she noticed that there were not many books or pictures of people who looked like her or her family. This made her want to create art that showed Black people's lives.

When she was in college, there were not many Black students in art programs. To connect with other Black artists, Carole went to an art show in 1971. It was called "Where We At: Black Women Artists." There, she met other Black women artists like Faith Ringgold. She became part of this group.

In 1969 or 1970, Carole moved to the Westbeth Artists Community in New York City. Many artists lived there, and it had a Black Artists Guild. This group was very important for her art. She joined the group and helped create art and write.

Carole saw herself as a "community artist." This meant she focused on art that helped and connected with her community.

Illustrating Children's Books

After art school, Carole first worked illustrating magazines. Then she started illustrating children's books. One of her first book projects was about Arthur Mitchell. He was a famous ballet dancer who started the Dance Theatre of Harlem.

In 1972, Carole received a special grant that allowed her to travel in Africa for three months. She visited Senegal, Ghana, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Egypt. In Ibadan, Nigeria, she painted a large mural. Her travels inspired the charcoal drawings for her next children's book, Three African Tales.

Carole illustrated more than 16 children's books. Her art often showed the African-American experience and stories from African heritage. She wanted more Black characters in American children's books. For example, in The Black Snowman (1991), she used pastels to draw a magical story. A boy brings a black snowman to life using city snow and a special kente cloth.

She also contributed to Jump Back, Honey: The Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar (1999). This book featured art by other famous artists like Jerry Pinkney. For the book Working Cotton, Carole's brother helped her learn about cotton farming. This book told a story about an African-American family working as migrant workers.

Fine Art and Exhibitions

Carole Byard also created many paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media art pieces. She was part of the Black Arts Movement. She was a founding member of the Black Artists Guild and an early member of "Where We At: Black Women Artists Inc.." This group started from a famous art show in 1971.

Her outdoor art installations often used ideas from traditional African-American burial sites. One example is Praisesong for Charles (1988). In 1992, she worked with Clarissa Sligh to create a special art "portrait" of Malcolm X for the Walker Art Center.

In 1998, Carole's art was shown in a Smithsonian exhibit called Resonant Forms. Her piece, "Imani, the Seventh Day" (1993), was an installation. It had a chair with a ladder-like back and gourds hanging from it. The chair stood in a tray filled with black eyed peas and pennies.

Carole also taught art at many places. These included the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Parsons School of Design.

The Rent Series

The New York Public Library showed a collection of Carole's art called the Rent Series in 2015. She started these paintings in the 1980s. They were inspired by old rent receipts she found after her father passed away.

Carole used these paintings to show how hard her father worked to provide a home for their family. She also used them to talk about bigger ideas. These included African-American history and housing segregation, which is when people are kept from living in certain areas because of their race.

Other Creative Work

In the 1970s, Carole Byard also designed album covers for Strata-East Records. This was a jazz music label in New York City. Her drawings and collages appeared on album jackets for artists like Stanley Cowell and Sonny Fortune.

Awards and Honors

Carole Byard received many awards for her important work:

• 1972: Ford Foundation travel grant for her trip to Africa.
• 1977: Delegate to the Black and African Festival of Art and Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos.
• 1978: Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Africa Dream.
• 1980: Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Cornrows.
• 1981: Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Grandma's Joy.
• 1986: National Endowment for the Arts, Fellowship for drawing.
• 1993: Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Working Cotton.
• 1993: Caldecott Honor for Working Cotton.
• 1994: National Endowment for the Arts, Fellowship for sculpture.

Album Cover Designs

Here are some of the album covers Carole Byard designed:

• 1974: Genesis by Charles Sullivan
• 1974: Long Before Our Mothers Cried by Sonny Fortune
• 1974: Musa – Ancestral Streams by Stanley Cowell
• 1975: Monism by Milton Marsh
• 1975: The Piano Choir by Handscapes 2
• 1976: Regeneration by Stanley Cowell
• 1976: Marchin' On! by The Heath Brothers
• 2003: Continuum by Sonny Fortune

Art Shows

Carole Byard's art was shown in many exhibitions:

Group Exhibitions

• 1975: Sojourn: An Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Carole Byard and Valerie Maynard, Gallery 1199 (New York, NY)
• 1978: Migrations: A National Exhibition of African-American Printmakers, Howard University (Washington, D.C.)
• 1980: The Child: Paintings, Drawings, Sculpture, Gallery 62 (New York, NY)
• 1989: War, Peace and Victory: A Sculpture Exhibition, Prospect Park (New York, NY)
• 1990: Dia De Los Muertos III: Homelessness, The Alternative Museum (New York, NY)
• 1990–1992: Ancestors Known and Unknown: Box Work – A traveling exhibition.
• 1992–1993: Malcolm X: Man, Ideal, Icon, Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN)
• 1993: Through Sisters' Eyes: Children's Books Illustrated by African-American Women Artists, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Newark Museum (Newark, NJ)
• 1998: Resonant Forms: Contemporary African American Women Sculptors, Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.)
• 2017: We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85, Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY)

Solo Exhibitions

• 1993: Sculpture Installation by Carole Byard, Dana Gallery at the Phillips Museum of Art (Lancaster, PA)
• 2015: Rent Series, New York Public Library (New York, NY)