El Anatsui

ARTIST’S TIMELINE
DATE El ANATSUI’S LIFE WORLD EVENT
1944 Born in Anyako, in the Volta Region of Ghana. June 6 – Allied Forces, including British, American,
Canadian and Free French airborne troops, invade
Normandy to combat German forces on what was called
D-Day, a turning point leading to the end of World War II.
1965–68 Attends College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University Science
and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
1965 Produces heraldic sculptures, including coats of arms for
Ghana, Uganda, Tunisia, and Zambia, in preparation for
a meeting of the heads of state for the Organization of
African Unity (O.A.U.) conference in Accra, Ghana.
1967 – The Nigerian-Biafran War, also known as of
the Nigerian Civil War, begins on May 30 as a result of
economic, ethnic, cultural, and religious tensions existing
between the nearly 300 different ethnic and cultural
groups which inhabit the Nigeria.
Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s leader at the time, was made
Secretary-General of the O.A.U. in October 1965, and
presided over the summit.
1969 Receives postgraduate diploma in Art Education from
University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
1969–75 Lecturer, Art Education Department, Specialist Training
College, Winneba, Ghana (now University of Education,
Winneba)
1970 – Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, declares itself an
independent and racially segregated republic on March 1.
1970s
Begins to incorporate adinkra, a Ghanaian symbolic
language of ideograms, into his art practice. One of the
symbols, sankofa, represents a bird known for its ability
to look backward and is associated with the concept of
looking to the past in order to plan the future. Anatsui’s use
of adinkra is an attempt to use tradition as a way of moving
art forward.
1972–75 Exhibits with a group of artists who hold annual shows
in Ghana (both at Winneba and Accra) under the name
Tekarts. Members include Desmond Fiadjoe, Philip
Amonoo, Edith Agbenaza, Richard Ekem, Hope Gamor, and
David Akotia.
1972 – Eleven Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in
Munich are killed after eight members of an Arab terrorist
group invade the Olympic Village.
1975 – Pol Pot (May 19, 1925 – April 15, 1998) and the
Khmer Rouge, a communist party, take over Cambodia in
April. They rule for four years, during which approximately
2 million Cambodians die due to political executions,
starvation, and forced labor.
1975–82 Lecturer, Fine and Applied Arts Department, University of
Nigeria, Nsukka
1976 First major solo exhibition, Wooden Wall Plaques by El
Anatsui, held in Nsukka, Nigeria. The plaques are produced
by the same carvers that make trays for market wares.
Anatsui marked the trays with adinkra symbols and hung
them on a wall. This is the first time Anatsui sculpts with
materials originally intended for another use.
1977–79 Begins to work on his Broken Pots series in 1977—a group
of ceramics based on the idea that fragments of a sculpture,
or pieces of history, are equally powerful as a complete
work. Exhibits the suite in 1979 at the British Council, Enugu
and at the Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria,
Nsukka.
TIMELINE 43