{{Short description|Ghanaian artist (1956–2021)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}} {{Infobox person | name = Atta Kwami | image = | birth_name = George Atta Kwami | birth_date = {{birth date|1956|9|14|df=y}} | death_date = {{death date and age|2021|10|6|1956|9|14|df=y}} | death_place = UK | birth_place = Accra, Ghana | occupation = Painter, printmaker, art historian and curator | alma_mater = Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology | spouse = {{Marriage|Pamela Clarkson|1992}} | website = {{URL|atta-kwami.com}} }}

'''Atta Kwami''' (14 September 1956 – 6 October 2021)<ref name=Basciano>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/oct/15/atta-kwami-obituary|title=Atta Kwami obituary|first=Oliver|last=Basciano|newspaper=The Guardian|date=15 October 2021}}</ref><ref name=Wemega-Kwawu>{{cite web|url=https://www.acasaonline.org/transition-atta-kwami-1956-2021/|title=Transition: Atta Kwami,1956 - 2021|first=Rikki|last=Wemega-Kwawu|access-date=20 October 2022}}</ref> was a Ghanaian painter, printmaker, independent art historian and curator. He was educated and taught at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, and in the United Kingdom. He created works that improvise form and colour and speak to uniquely Ghanaian architecture and African strip-woven textiles, including those of the Kente, the Ewe and Asante of Ghana.

==Early life and education== Born George Atta Kwami in 1956 in Accra to Robert Kwami, a music teacher, and prominent first generation Ghanaian contemporary artist Grace Kwami (nee Anku),<ref name=Wemega-Kwawu>{{cite web|url=https://www.acasaonline.org/transition-atta-kwami-1956-2021/|title=Transition: Atta Kwami,1956 - 2021|first=Rikki|last=Wemega-Kwawu|access-date=20 October 2022}}</ref> he studied, and later taught, at the KNUST in Kumasi, Ghana. In 2007, he received a PhD in art history at the Open University for his work for contemporary Ghanaian artists, subsequently published as ''Kumasi Realism, 1951–2007: An African Modernism'' (Hurst & Company, 2013).<ref>{{Cite web|title=Atta Kwami - Creative Folkestone|url=https://www.creativefolkestone.org.uk/artists/atta-kwami/|access-date=9 July 2021|website=www.creativefolkestone.org.uk|language=en}}</ref>

== Career == Kwami was awarded the title of 1st Thoyer Distinguished Visiting Scholar in New York University, New York, from 30 September to 8 October 2008.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Afro Combs|url=https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/afrocombs/project/committee.html|access-date=9 July 2021|website=www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk}}</ref>

Kwami also held the Philip L. Ravenhill Fellowship (UCLA) at the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC, from 1 March to 31 May 2010.

He was Artist-in-Residence at the University of Michigan, Graduate School of Art & Design, in January 2011.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Afro Combs|url=https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/afrocombs/project/committee.html|access-date=9 July 2021|website=www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk}}</ref>

Kwami won the Janet L. Stanley Travel Award to attend the Fifteenth Triennial Symposium on African Art entitled "Africa and its Diasporas in the Market Place: Cultural Resources and the Global Economy" at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 23 to 26 March 2011.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.acasaonline.org/docs/prog_tri_15.pdf|title=Fifteenth Triennial Symposium on African Art|last=Arts Council of the African Studies Association|date=March 2011|website=ACASA Online|access-date=30 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140903154249/http://www.acasaonline.org/docs/prog_tri_15.pdf|archive-date=3 September 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Between 14 and 26 August 2011, Kwami undertook the Howard Kestenbaum/Vijay Paramsothy International Fellowship at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Maine, USA.

In 2021, he won the Maria Lassnig Prize from the Maria Lassnig Foundation in Vienna and the Serpentine Galleries in the UK.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Atta Kwami Public Art Commission: Maria Lassnig Foundation x Serpentine Galleries|url=https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/about/press/maria-lassnig-prize-awarded-to-atta-kwami/|access-date=6 December 2020|website=Serpentine Galleries|language=en-GB}}</ref>

== Exhibitions == Kwami's work has been exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/383727|title=Atta Kwami {{!}} A suite of five linocuts individually titled: Kpong, Kpetoe, Vane, Tsito, Juapong {{!}} The Met|website=The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum|access-date=18 April 2018}}</ref> National Museum of African Art,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://africa.si.edu/collections/view/people/asitem/K/1/displayName-asc?t:state:flow=4033bfb3-8dbf-46d8-be49-5b0dc78fc1d5|title=Collections {{!}} National Museum of African Art|website=africa.si.edu|access-date=18 April 2018}}</ref> National Museum of Ghana, National Museum of Kenya, Victoria and Albert Museum,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O226511/mask-screenprint-kwami-atta/|title=Mask {{!}} Kwami, Atta {{!}} V&A Search the Collections|website=collections.vam.ac.uk|language=en|access-date=18 April 2018}}</ref> the World Museum,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/wml/collections/ethnology/africa/atta-kwami/related-person-69969-1.aspx|title=George Atta Kwami|website=www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk|language=en-GB|access-date=18 April 2018}}</ref> and the British Museum.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=176589|title=Term details|website=British Museum|language=en-GB|access-date=18 April 2018}}</ref>

==Personal life==

In 1992, Kwami married Pamela Clarkson,<ref name=Basciano>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/oct/15/atta-kwami-obituary|title=Atta Kwami obituary|first=Oliver|last=Basciano|newspaper=The Guardian|date=15 October 2021}}</ref> a painter and printmaker, whom he had met in 1991 when she set up a printmaking studio at the College of Art, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. They divided their time between Kumasi, Ghana, and Loughborough, United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite web|title=About|url=https://www.pamela-clarkson-kwami.com/|access-date=20 October 2022|website=www.pamela-clarkson-kwami.com}}</ref>

He died of cancer in the UK on 6 October 2021.<ref name="Wemega–Kwawu">{{cite web|url=https://www.acasaonline.org/transition-atta-kwami-1956-2021/|title=Transition: Atta Kwami,1956 – 2021|first=Rikki|last=Wemega–Kwawu|access-date=20 October 2022}}</ref>

== References == {{Reflist}}

== External links == * [https://atta-kwami.com/ Official site]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kwami, Atta}} Category:1956 births Category:2021 deaths Category:20th-century Ghanaian historians Category:Academic staff of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Category:Alumni of the Open University Category:Artists from Accra Category:Ghanaian art historians Category:Ghanaian artists Category:Ghanaian curators Category:Ghanaian painters Category:Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology alumni