El Anatsui

El Anatsui is the richest Ghanaian visual artist, with an estimated net worth of $5 million (estimated).

El Anatsui's best-known works are made from thousands of aluminium bottle caps and liquor-bottle seals, flattened, folded and joined with copper wire into metal sheets that hang like cloth. In 2015 the Venice Biennale gave him its Golden Lion for lifetime achievement, and in 2023 he filled the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern.

Early life

He was born on 4 February 1944 at Anyako in the Volta Region, the youngest of his father's 32 children, and was raised by an uncle after his mother died. He studied at the College of Art at KNUST in Kumasi, graduating in 1968, and added a postgraduate diploma in art education in 1969.

Nsukka

After teaching at Winneba, he joined the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1975 and stayed for more than three decades, becoming professor of sculpture and head of fine and applied arts from 1996 to 2011. His early work was in wood and clay; an honourable mention at the 1990 Venice Biennale and prizes at the Osaka Sculpture Triennial in 1995 and 1998 brought him international notice.

The metal cloths

From the late 1990s, with pieces such as Man's Cloth, he turned discarded bottle caps into wall hangings that refer to kente and to the trade routes that brought alcohol to West Africa. Major shows followed: Palazzo Fortuny in Venice (2007), a touring retrospective from the Royal Ontario Museum (2010), Gravity and Grace at the Brooklyn Museum (2013), Triumphant Scale at Haus der Kunst in Munich (2019) and Behind the Red Moon, the Hyundai Commission at Tate Modern (2023-24).

Honours

He received the Prince Claus Award in 2009 and in 2017 became the first Ghanaian to win the Praemium Imperiale. Harvard (2016), KNUST (2017) and Bard College (2024) have given him honorary doctorates, and Time named him one of its 100 most influential people in 2023.