Atta Kwami (14 September 1956 – 6 October 2021) was a Ghanaian painter, printmaker, independent art historian and curator. He was educated and taught at the

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), commonly known as UST, Tech or Kwame Tech, is a public university located in Kumasi, Ashanti region, Ghana. The university focuses on science and technology. It is the second public uni ...

(KNUST),

Kumasi Kumasi is a city and the capital of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly and the Ashanti Region of Ghana. It is the second largest city in the country, with a population of 443,981 as of the 2021 census. Kumasi is located in a rain forest region ...

, Ghana, and in the United Kingdom. He created works that improvise form and colour and speak to uniquely Ghanaian architecture and African strip-woven textiles, including those of the

Kente Kente refers to a Ghanaian textile made of hand-woven strips of silk and cotton. Historically the fabric was worn in a toga-like fashion among the Asante people, Asante, Akan people, Akan and Ewe people. According to Asante oral tradition, it ori ...

, the Ewe and Asante of Ghana.

Early life and education

Born George Atta Kwami in 1956 in

Accra Accra (; or ''Gaga''; ; Ewe: Gɛ; ) is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , had a population of ...

to Robert Kwami, a music teacher, and prominent first generation Ghanaian contemporary artist Grace Kwami (nee Anku), he studied, and later taught, at the KNUST in Kumasi, Ghana. In 2007 he received a PhD in art history at the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

for his work for contemporary Ghanaian artists, now published as ''Kumasi Realism, 1951–2007: An African Modernism'' (Hurst & Company, 2013).

Career

Kwami was awarded the title of 1st Thoyer Distinguished Visiting Scholar in

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, New York, from 30 September to 8 October 2008. Kwami also held the Philip L. Ravenhill Fellowship (UCLA) at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC, from 1 March to 31 May 2010. He was Artist-in-Residence at the University of Michigan, Graduate School of Art & Design, in January 2011. Kwami won the Janet L. Stanley Travel Award to attend the Fifteenth Triennial Symposium on African Art entitled "Africa and its Diasporas in the Market Place: Cultural Resources and the Global Economy" at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 23 to 26 March 2011. Between 14 and 26 August 2011, he undertook the Howard Kestenbaum/Vijay Paramsothy International Fellowship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Maine, USA. In 2021, he won the Maria Lassnig Prize from the Maria Lassnig Foundation in Vienna and the Serpentine Galleries in the UK.

Exhibitions

Kwami's work has been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, National Museum of African Art, National Museum of Ghana, National Museums of Kenya, National Museum of Kenya, Victoria and Albert Museum, the World Museum, and the British Museum.

Personal life

In 1992, Kwami married Pamela Clarkson, a painter and printmaker who he had met in 1991 when she set up a printmaking studio at the College of Art,

. They divided their time between Kumasi, Ghana, and Loughborough, United Kingdom. He died of cancer in the UK on 6 October 2021.

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kwami, Atta 1956 births 2021 deaths Ghanaian artists Ghanaian painters Ghanaian curators 20th-century Ghanaian historians Ghanaian art historians Artists from Accra Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology alumni Academic staff of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Alumni of the Open University