In March 2024, Goodman Gallery in partnership with Beardsmore Gallery announced the representation of Ghanaian artist’s Atta Kwami’s estate. Now, Goodman Gallery presents Kwami’s first solo show with the gallery since announcing representation. This exhibition presents a selection of important works made over a period of twenty years, showing the breadth of Kwami’s practice which further highlights Kwami as one of the most important African abstract painters of the 20th century.
Kwami was awarded the prestigious Maria Lassnig prize posthumously in 2021, honouring him among 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 of the Ewe and Asante people of Ghana, to jazz, the tradition of mural painting to 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 the years 1999 to 2021, The works reference 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. The exhibition opens on the 16th of May and will run until the 29th of June 2024. 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; as well as the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York.
