El Anatsui

Born in Anyako, Ghana, sculptor El Anatsui received a BA from the College of Art at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. He taught at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka.

Anatsui's work has been featured in many exhibitions including the Carnegie International in 2018; Marrakech Biennale in 2016; Contemporary 2 at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan in 2015; and the Venice Biennale in both 1990 and 2007.

His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, New York City; Brooklyn Museum; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA; Akron Art Museum, OH; St. Louis Art Museum, MO; Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf, Germany; Setagaya Museum, Tokyo, Japan; and British Museum, London.

Anatsui is well-known for his large-scale sculptures composed of thousands of folded and crumpled pieces of metal sourced from local alcohol recycling stations and bound together with copper wire. These intricate works, which can grow to be massive in scale, are both luminous and weighty, and meticulously fabricated yet malleable.

After receiving the Brandywine Workshop and Archives' Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017, Anatsui made a commitment to donate art to BWA for the funding of the upcoming El Anatsui Fellowships for African-based artists. With his help, BWA has been able to plan a new, ongoing program of artist residencies in printmaking for artists living and working on the African continent. 
_{—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records}