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The 75th year
anniversary exhibition of Prof. Ablade Glover
Audrey Micah, Ghanadot
Accra, Aug 21, Ghanadot -
One of Ghana’s foremost and top
best known painters in Africa, Professor Ablade Glover,
celebrated his 75th birthday at the Artists Alliance Gallery
in Accra last week.
In marking the day, he exhibited a selection of work which
he said revealed his lifelong
passion for "life, activity and colour."
The paintings at the exhibition hall
for Alliance Artists were splendor to behold.
Using warm pigments expressive of the sun and heat of Ghana,
Professor Glover‘s paintings
depicted vibrant scenes
of the exuberance
of life in Africa; of
bustling market stalls, brightly-attired crowds and energy of the people of his
country.
According to him, oil painting has an integral role to play
in the contemporary arts of Africa, both as a means of
individual expression and as a potent medium in which to
record and celebrate the visual richness of the continent.
In an interview with Ghanadot, Ms. Aanaa Enin,
the guest of honour
for the occasion, also disclosed that art forms
an important part of our traditional way of
life and that our ancestors
created images and worshiped them.
To
Ms. Enin, the fact that these
images became the object of worship of
our ancestors did not and should not negate the aesthetic content or value
of these objects.
Prof. Atukwei Okai,
a member of the Pan-African Writers Association
also in attendance,
in an interview with Ghanadot, congratulated Professor
Ablade Glover, saying that "art is the
only thing that reminds us of the things that make us
thick."
He
said art played a pivotal role in
man’s everyday life.
He called on the press to help Ghanaian artists by
providing them exposure through
the various media and
to always uphold
respect for the artist and art exhibitions.
Professor Glover was until recently the
Dean of the College of
Art and Head of the Department of Art Education at the
University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, where he
taught for twenty-nine years.
As one of the best known painters in Africa today, Professor
Glover has exhibited widely in Africa, Europe, and the
Americas.
Places he has exhibited include:
The National Gallery of Art, Harare, Zimbabwe; The National
Gallery of Art, Lagos, Nigeria; Gallery Pluriels in Abidjan,
Ivory Coast; the Commonwealth Institute in London; World
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) offices in Geneva;
The World Bank Offices, Washington D.C., U.S.A.; and IFA
Gallery in Bonn, Germany.
He has been collected extensively, and
his works are represented in
International and Institutional (both private and public)
collections. These include: the Commonwealth Foundation in
London; Ashanti Goldfields Company, Accra, Ghana; O'Hare
International Airport, Chicago, U.S.A.; UNESCO Head Office
in Paris, France; The World Bank, Accra, Ghana; Barclays
Bank Ghana, Ltd.; and the Royal Collection of Prince and
Princess Takamado of Japan.
Professor Glover was awarded the Distinguished AFGRAD Alumni
Award, (AA1-USA) for 1992; and has been mentioned in the
1994 EGRAG Awards as the Fine Art Ambassador Extraordinaire,
Ghana.
He
is married to Esi Glover and has seven children.
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