El Anatsui

Internationally acclaimed artist, El Anatsui (b. 1944, Anyako, Ghana) has a long and distinguished career as both sculptor and teacher - he taught at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka for nearly four decades. In 2015, he was awarded the Venice Biennale's highest honour, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. In 2014, El Anatsui was made an Honorary Royal Academician and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Major solo exhibitions include Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2010);...See more

Internationally acclaimed artist, El Anatsui (b. 1944, Anyako, Ghana) has a long and distinguished career as both sculptor and teacher - he taught at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka for nearly four decades. In 2015, he was awarded the Venice Biennale's highest honour, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. In 2014, El Anatsui was made an Honorary Royal Academician and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Major solo exhibitions include Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2010); National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka (2010); Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio (2012), which travelled to the Brooklyn Museum, New Y ork and the Des Moines Art Center, Iowa (2013); Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2014); and Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2015). In 2019, El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale, a major career survey curated by Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu, was presented at Haus der Kunst, Munich, before touring to Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, 2019; and Kunstmuseum Bern, 2020. Anatsui's works have been featured in Ghana's first National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2019); the Marrakech Biennale (2016); Biennale of Sydney (2012); Moscow Biennale, (2009); Venice Biennale and Sharjah Biennial (2007); Biennale of African Art, Dakar (2006); Gwangju Biennale (2004); Johannesburg Biennale (1995); Havana Biennale (1994); Venice Biennale (1990). In 2023, El Anatsui's largest work to date Behind the Red Moon was unveiled at the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall for the site-specific Hyundai Commission which toured to the Museum of Art Pudong (MAP), Shanghai in 2024. His work is held in prestigious public collections across the globe including: The British Museum, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; de Young Museum, San Francisco; Smithsonian Institution, Washington; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California; The National Gallery of Contemporary Art, Lagos; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, among others. See less