bryant terry is a multidisciplinary artist, chef, publisher, and author. His studio practice bridges cooking, sculpture, sound, video, and social practice to explore resilience, cultural memory, and liberation.

His art and ideas have been featured at leading institutions including the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Underground Museum, and The Hammer Museum at UCLA. Terry is also half of the music duo Saint State Street with Joshua Gabriel.

From 2015 to 2022, he served as the inaugural Chef-in-Residence at San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora, curating dynamic programming connecting food, health, farming, art, and activism. As founder and editor-in-chief of 4 Color Books (an imprint of Ten Speed Press/Penguin Random House), he collaborates with visionary creatives of color to produce visually stunning nonfiction books. 

terry’s achievements in the publishing world include authoring five highly acclaimed cookbooks, editing and curating an anthology, Black Food, and serving as the editor of The Best American Food and Travel Writing 2025. His work has earned him prestigious honors, including a James Beard Award, an NAACP Image Award, and an Art of Eating Prize. His book Black Food received widespread praise and was hailed as the most critically acclaimed American cookbook of 2021. 

terry is the recipient of numerous grants and residencies, including those from the East Bay Fund for Artists, Headlands Center for the Arts (Graduate Fellowship), Open Society Foundations (Community Fellowship), the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (Food and Society Fellowship), and UC Berkeley’s Black Studies Collaboratory (Artist Fellowship).

terry completed an MFA in Art Practice at UC Berkeley in 2025. He holds an MA in History from NYU and received his culinary training at the Natural Gourmet Institute. He presents frequently around the country as a keynote speaker at community events, conferences, and colleges. He lives in the Bay Area with his wife and two daughters. Read more about him on his website.