James Ransome Residency Blends History and Art
Every year, the Art and Design Department invites a practicing artist to work with students across all three divisions. This year, award-winning illustrator and studio artist James Ransome led a week-long residency at King.
A graduate of Pratt Institute and Lesley University, Ransome’s artwork draws on his African-American lineage, tracing back to sharecroppers of the rural South who migrated to Northern cities, bringing history, identity, and storytelling into his teaching and collaborations.
He has illustrated more than 75 children’s books and received awards including the 2023 Children’s Literature Legacy Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor since retiring from his tenured professorship at Syracuse University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts. His book A Place for Us recently received a Jane Addams Honor.
At King, students collaborated with Ransome from January 12 through the 16 to create a triptych depicting the Great Migration of African Americans. Each 48-by-48-inch canvas represented a phase: Living in the South, Migration, and Living in the Cities. Students worked with painting and collage techniques to realize Ransome’s sketches.
“Overall, working with Ransome was an enlightening experience,” said Teagan Robinson ’27. “It afforded the opportunity to have a look into the daily life of an artist and an artistic apprentice. As an aspiring artist myself, I found this to be an amazing purview of the type of work I could be doing in my future.”
Lower and middle school students also worked on individual abstract collages using found, vintage, and purchased papers from Ransome’s personal collection. He demonstrated how to layer shapes, colors, and patterns to create visual rhythm and contrast between busy and quiet.
The residency is part of the King School Visiting Artists Program, which is designed to give students insight into a professional artist’s life, methods, and motivations. It allows students to engage directly with practicing artists, observe their techniques, and collaborate on on-site projects.
“Working with visiting artists allows students to experience firsthand the process of making professional art,” said Ran LaPolla, Upper School Art and Design teacher. “It gives them an opportunity to explore techniques, collaborate, and express themselves in ways they might not otherwise.”
The residency culminated with divisional presentations and a community-wide opening reception on January 23 in the Performing Arts Center, where the triptych and student collages are currently on display.