Alex Bostic was about 6 years old when he and his older brother were playing make-believe war games with matches outside in their Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood. A woman who noticed the boys called the fire department, leading firefighters to pull up in a red firetruck to pick them up and take the young boys to the fire station. After touring the facilities, the kids met the fire chief, who presented them with a “book of fire” that demonstrated all of the fires that had happened in that neighborhood.
Afterward, firefighters gave the boys crayons, pencils and paper before loading them into the firetruck and returning them to their initial playsite.
“I realized my older brother can really draw. He never drew before, and I knew I couldn’t,” Bostic told the Mississippi Free Press on Feb. 6, 2026. “So, I did what any other little brother would do: I started crying. … To shut me up, he taught me how to draw.”
Bostic wanted to bring the drawings to the fire station to show the firefighters, per their request, but his brother did not feel like going. Electing to go alone, Bostic took his and his brother’s artwork and started walking toward the station. About halfway there, he decided to throw away his brother’s drawing in a trash can, arriving at the station with only his artwork in hand. Showering Bostic with praise, the firefighters displayed the drawing on the marquee.
From then until the day his family moved out of their neighborhood, Bostic brought all of his new artwork to the station for firefighters to hang up. Occasionally, he would bring his friends by the station to show them his art as “a private little show.”
‘I Think I Know Where He’s At’
His brother never became a professional artist, but that interaction with the firefighters changed Bostic’s life forever. When Bostic was in seventh grade, he began taking art lessons on the weekends with Ellen Kuenzle, who ended up being his lifelong mentor until the day she died in 2024.
The young artist was interested in drawing superheroes before his mentor encouraged him to start drawing normal people he saw around the city.
“I would draw in the subway, go to Central Park and draw, (and) go to the museums. New York was a really good place for artwork,” Bostic said. “On the weekends, I would get up early, about five o’clock, do my chores, and then go into the city. I would go to galleries, museums—whatever I can do to see some artwork.”
Most frequently, he visited the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he would spend hours looking at John Singer Sargent’s artwork: his favorite artist.
Kuenzle helped him apply and get accepted into the High School for Art and Design in Manhattan, New York City. All the while, Bostic had lied to his parents about art school, instead saying he was attending Brooklyn Tech, which had an engineering school, because his parents dreamed of him becoming an engineer.
The test to get into Brooklyn Tech was scheduled a month or two ahead of the test for the art school. Brooklyn Tech accepted him, to his parents’ elation. When he later brought paperwork to his parents that required their approval for Bostic to take the admissions test for art school, his parents refused to sign their permission.
“There’s no need,” they told him. “You’re in Brooklyn Tech. You don’t need to take the test for art and design.”
Upset, Bostic went to Kuenzle to complain. After hearing him out, she asked to see the paper and then forged his parents’ signature then and there. Bostic went back to Manhattan, took the test, and received an acceptance letter. He never told his parents.
Bostic went to the art school every day without his parents knowing. He even hid the name of the school from his report cards when showing them to his parents, and his parents never noticed because he always had As in his classes. One day, however, Bostic brought home a C, raising his parents’ alarm.
“They went to Brooklyn Tech to see what they could do to help me improve that grade. And Brooklyn Tech said, ‘We don’t have an Alex Bostic here.’ (My parents) said, ‘Yeah, he’s been going here for two years,’” Bostic relayed with a laugh as he recalled the memory. “And then my stepdad said, ‘I think I know where he’s at.’ And they drove to Manhattan.”
His parents showed up outside of the cafeteria at the art school and peered through the windows. One of his friends noticed them staring at Bostic and told him to turn around and look. Surprised, Bostic saw his parents and walked to the door, whereupon they had an exchange that led to a mutual understanding.
“What are you doing here?” they asked.
“Going to school,” Bostic replied.
“So, why did you lie (about going to Brooklyn Tech)?”
“Because you lied. I thought it was a deal that you’d sign my papers.”
“Well, we were anticipating that you’d be an engineer.”
“I was anticipating being an artist.”
After that, his parents vowed to never intrude upon his education. Bostic said that his parents letting him make his own schooling and career decisions was the best thing they could have done to help him become successful “because parents sometimes get in the way.”
“When they got out of my way, I was free to make my own mistakes,” he added.
From Basketball to ‘Miniature Portraits’
In high school, Bostic discovered his passion for illustration when he would sneak out of school during lunchtime and walk four blocks away to talk to artists at the Society of Illustrators.
“I realized I wanted to be an illustrator because they told stories,” Bostic said. “I love telling stories.”
After graduating from art school, Bostic enrolled at Sullivan County Community College. At first, he believed the school had rejected his attempt at joining the art program, but he stayed anyway to play on the basketball team.
At one point, the head of the college’s art department noticed Bostic’s artwork in a booklet for the student association and asked about his classes. When Bostic said he had been taking general courses, the department head was confused, saying the department accepted his application. Apparently, Bostic had received the wrong letter. Following that revelation, he switched his major over to the art department.
“The thing about it is, I look at it as, there’s a whole lot of things that get in your way if you let it. But if there’s a path for you that God made for you, that path is going to reveal itself,” Bostic said. “You know? But I think it’s more about attitude. Don’t think about it as being defeated; just think about it being a hurdle to get over.”
Bostic later auditioned for the Pratt Institute’s basketball team, earning a full scholarship to attend the school, where he studied illustration. After completing his degree, he launched his art career as a greeting-card designer for Hallmark Greeting Cards before moving on to work at a small studio. He later ventured into teaching, first at the Kansas City Art Institute in Kansas City, Kansas, and then at Woodbury University in California. He also spent time in California creating art for movies along with movie posters.
He moved back to New York, he co-founded Illumination Studios and began teaching at Pratt Institute before settling at Virginia Commonwealth University, working there as a professor for 24 years. After that, he moved to Starkville, Mississippi, and became a professor of drawing at Mississippi State University for 15 years. As an instructor, he encouraged students to find and follow their passions.
“If you’re passionate about something, stick to it, even if you’re bad at it,” Bostic said. “You’re going to eventually get good, and that’s what I teach my students. … Success is when talent and opportunity meet, so work on your talent because opportunities will come.”
Now retired, 70-year-old Bostic, who has written and illustrated two children’s books, focuses on fine art or personal art. Most recently, he has designed two official USA Forever stamps, which he calls “miniature portraits.”
It started with a call from one of his students at Virginia Commonwealth University, who had been designing stamps for international countries. One day, she called Bostic because she needed him to quickly design some stamps because another artist had “messed up.” Bostic designed about 10 stamps and then “kind of forgot about it,” he said.
Many of his friends had been designing stamps in the U.S., and Bostic was eager to get into the industry himself. His business partner, Rudy Gutierrez, created the Jimi Hendrix USA Forever stamp in 2014.
“I was, like, really proud of him and maybe envious of him at the same time,” Bostic recalled.
About five years ago, a member of the U.S. Postal Service Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee called Bostic to ask if he would be interested in creating stamps. Bostic confirmed his interest, and the two concluded their conversation. The committee, however, did not reach out to him again until about three years later. The person who called instructed him to design a stamp in honor of Edmonia Lewis, a Black and Native American sculptor who achieved international admiration.
“I was in the middle of doing my first children’s book, and I had to … do the stamp. The stamp got produced; the book got produced,” Bostic said. “They had a ceremony and a release of the stamp, and it was in every post office, and I was doing a bunch of signings.”
The fervor surrounding his stamp art simmered down a bit until last year when he received yet another call from the stamp committee asking him to work on two designs for the 250th anniversary of the U.S., which the U.S. Postal Service recently released.
“I’m really proud that I’m part of this particular set of stamps and that an African American can represent our country,” Bostic said.
