El Anatsui Ghana/Nigeria

El Anatsui was born in Ghana and has had a distinguished career in Nigeria since 1975 as a visual artist and educator. Anatsui experiments with local symbolic vocabularies, forms, artisanal processes and materials. His work is part of the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Centre Pompidou, Paris and the British Museum, London, amongst other public collections. El Anatsui is emeritus Professor of Sculpture at the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka where he taught for over thirty years. He has also received many accolades including most recently from such institutions as Harvard University and the University of Cape Town. In 2009 El Anatsui received the Prince Claus Award for “the outstanding aesthetic and intellectual qualities of his creations, for his innovative use of materials to highlight the dialogue between culture and nature, and for his dedicated and inspirational role in the development of the visual arts…"

2009 Awards Book here.