By Nii B. Andrews.
Atta Kwami’s stellar art career spanned over 40 years.
He was an accomplished artist, curator and art historian.
Kwami produced paintings that were geometric blocks of color anchored in the visual references of his native Ghana – kente cloth, jazz and the more accessible aspects of modernism.
****Atta Kwami, Yibor Square (2018). Photo courtesy of Goodman Gallery.*****
He began his art studies in the late 1960s and 70s at the prestigious Achimota School; his undergraduate and graduate studies were at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST); he was appointed to the faculty of the same institution.
In 2007, Kwami received a PhD in art history.
His thesis was published as the seminal work “KUMASI REALISM, 1951-2007: An African Modernism” in which he comprehensively explored and explained past and present influences on West African art, with an emphasis on the vibrant street art traditions of artisans based in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city.
******Another Time (Ɣebubuɣi), 2011. Acrylic on linen, 59 3/4 × 59 3/4 in. (151.8 × 151.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, © artist or artist’s estate *******
Kwami was awarded the prestigious Maria Lassnig prize in 2021 – honouring artists deserving of greater visibility.
The prize resulted in a major mural commission at the Serpentine Gallery and the artist’s first monograph.
Sadly, 2021 was the year he died.
In 2022, The Serpentine unveiled the final public mural commission by Kwami, ‘DzidzƆ kple amenuveve (Joy and Grace)’, which remains on view until September 2024.
The Goodman Gallery is currently presenting Atta Kwami’s first solo show with the gallery since announcing representation of the estate in partnership with Beardsmore Gallery.
This exhibition presents a selection of important works made over a period of twenty years, showing the breadth of Kwami’s practice and highlighting the artist as one of the most important abstract painters of the 20th century.
The exhibition showcases work from 1999 to 2021, alongside an abstracted Kiosk structure Money Can’t Buy It (2019) constructed of found wood and conceived of as expanded three-dimensional paintings.
The large architectural scale work references the ubiquitous urban improvised vernacular of Ghanaian street painting.
The range and variety of pieces in the show point to and unfold the range of influences on Kwami’s practice including his extensive travel across the African continent.
Kwami’s work is included in major collections around the world, including the V&A Museum, London; the National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the Brooklyn Museum.
*****Atta Kwami
16 May – 29 June 2024
Goodman Gallery, London*****