Goodman Gallery is delighted to present 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 African abstract painters of the 20th century. Belatedly recognised, 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 which will be published alongside this exhibition.
With a career spanning forty years, Kwami was a distinguished artist, art historian and curator, living and working between the UK and his home country, Ghana. His colourful works of vibrant geometric patterns are inspired by a wide range of influences, from Ewe and Asante cloth to jazz, the tradition of mural painting and the design of street kiosks along the roads of West-African towns. Kwami is known for expanding the notions of painting, basing his practice both in the visual world of his native Ghana and in reflections on modernism.
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 architectural scale work reference to the improvised vernacular of Ghanaian street painting. The show expounds on the range of influences on Kwami’s practice including his extensive travel across the African continent.
Contributing to the growing scholarship on the work of Atta Kwami, Melissa Blanchflower, Senior Curator at Turner Contemporary and editor of the forthcoming monograph, will deliver a talk and walkthrough of the exhibition on the 31st of May at 11:00am.
Artworks
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Artist Bio
Atta Kwami (b. 1956, Accra, Ghana, d. 2021, UK) was a distinguished artist, art historian and curator, living and working between the UK and his home country, Ghana. His colourful works of vibrant geometric patterns are inspired by a wide range of influences, from Ewe and Assante cloth to jazz, the tradition of mural painting and the design of street kiosks along the roads of West-African towns. Kwami is known for expanding the notions of painting, basing his practice both in the visual world of his native Ghana and in reflections on modernism.
Atta Kwami studied, and later taught at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). In 2007, Kwami received a PhD in art history, now published as 'Kumasi Realism, 1951-2007: An African Modernism,' in which he sought to explore past and present influences on West African art, with an emphasis on street art traditions throughout Kumasi, Ghana.
In 2021, the year he died, he was awarded the prestigious Maria Lassnig prize, which recognised later career artists deserving wider career recognition, and, in 2022, The Serpentine unveiled the final public mural commission by Kwami, 'DzidzƆ kple amenuveve (Joy and Grace)', which remained on view until September 2024.
In the spring of 2024, the Serpentine published a monograph about Kwami with Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Köln supported by The Maria Lassnig Foundation and marking the first publication dedicated to examining the breadth of Kwami’s singular practice.
Kwami’s work is included in major collections around the world, including the National Museums of Ghana and Kenya; the V&A Museum, London; the National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York.
