Ghanaian artist and sculptor El Anatsui uses humble found materials — mostly famously, bottle caps — to make monumental artworks. Currently living and working in Nigeria, Anatsui is known for defying categorization, with sculptures that have been described variously as resembling quilts, animal hides, chainmail, lace and mosaics. He also creates smaller-scale abstract prints with a similar look and energy.
Anatsui was born in 1944 and earned his bachelor’s degree from Ghana’s Kumasi College of Arts, Science and Technology in 1968. He followed it up with a postgraduate diploma in art education and took his first teaching post at the University of Education in Ghana in 1969. In the late 1970s, Anatsui began creating his own art, mainly in terra-cotta, inspired by traditional African forms.
In 1982, Anatsui became a lecturer at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he continued to teach until 2011. Over the 1980s, he branched out and experimented with materials like wood, giving him greater freedom of scale, pattern and color. Over time, he began to use smaller pieces of metal stitched-together copper wire to build grandiose sculptures, which became his signature look and technique. In addition to bottle caps, Anatsui is known for using printing plates, iron nails, railroad ties and tin cans.
Whatever material he chooses for any given piece, Anatsui ensures that it has a connection to Africa, often sourcing from local recycling stations. His work is an exploration of the environment, waste, colonialism, local traditions, consumption and the connections between all of these facets. In the process, he transforms discarded items into beautiful art installations.
In 2008, Anatsui was recognized for his contributions to art with a Lifetime Achievement award at the Venice Biennale. His work has been exhibited all over the world, including at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka and Rice Gallery in Houston. In 2022, Damiani Publishers released a 360-page book titled El Anatsui: The Reinvention of Sculpture, which chronicles his life and work.
On 1stDibs, find El Anatsui prints and other art.
Paper and Silver by El Anatsui hand-sculpted aluminium sculpture African Art
By El Anatsui
Located in Zug, CH
El Anatsui uses typically discarded resources such as liquor bottle caps, cassava graters and newspaper printing plates, to create both floor-based sculptures and shimmering wall pie...
Metal, Copper, Wire
Price Upon Request
Variation I (B)
By El Anatsui
Located in Saint Louis, MO
El Anatsui Variation I (B), 2014 Pigment print with hand collage and copper wire 23 x 30.2 inches (58.4 x 76.8 cm) Edition of 16
Wire
$34,998
H 36.2 in W 49.6 in
Cannizaro H4-4 Damien Hirst Contemporary Art Diasec-mounted Giclée Print Street
By Damien Hirst
Located in Draper, UT
Damien Hirst Cannizaro H4-4 Diasec-mounted Giclée print on aluminium panel 920 x 1260 MM Edition size: 75 + 5 AP signed and numbered from an edition of 75 verso, published by HENI Editions; sheet: 92 x 126cm Damien Hirst first came to public attention in London in 1988 when he conceived and curated "Freeze," an exhibition in a disused warehouse that showed his work and that of his friends and fellow students at Goldsmiths College. In the nearly quarter of a century since that pivotal show (which would come to define the Young British Artists), Hirst has become one of the most influential artists of his generation. His groundbreaking works include The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), a shark in formaldehyde; Mother and Child Divided (1993) a four-part sculpture of a bisected cow and calf; and For the Love of God (2007), a human skull studded with 8,601 diamonds. In addition to his installations and sculptures, Hirst’s Spot paintings...
Metal
$258Sale Price|82% Off
H 27.56 in W 19.69 in
Limited Edition Waterfall Abstract Print on Photographic Paper
By Sandra Salamonová
Located in Slovak Republic, SK
Limited edition 10 in this size. Fine Art Print. Other sizes on request.
Photographic Paper, Color, Digital
Untitled No. 516, from: A Bigger Book, Art Edition D
By David Hockney
Located in London, GB
Untitled iPad drawing printed on paper from A Bigger Book 2016 56 x 43.2 cm Edition 85 of 250 Hand signed, numbered and dated '10' by Hockney Published by David Hockney and Taschen A...
Paper, Digital
$305Sale Price|82% Off
H 27.56 in W 19.69 in
Win WIN Photography Print Limited Edition Signed
By Sandra Salamonová
Located in Slovak Republic, SK
Abstract fine art print, limited edition of 15. Signed by the author, inspired during a difficult tennis match (lines and cinder).
Color, Digital, Archival Pigment
The Bound Horizon (edition of 20)
By Beau Carey
Located in Bozeman, MT
By using references to navigational coastal profiling and by borrowing and subverting compositional structures of the 19th century American landscape painters I examine how modern la...
Gold Leaf
$331Sale Price|20% Off
H 18.51 in W 22.45 in
On Two Tables Silkscreen Print, Abstract Geometric, Circa 2011, APs
Located in Bournemouth, Dorset
ROBINSON , Geoffrey (b.1945) On Two Tables c.2011 Silkscreen Print 47.0 × 57.0 cm 18 1/2 × 22 2/5 in 2 APs Geoffrey Robinson trained at Bournemouth College of Art in the 1960’...
Screen
20th February 2021, Jug With Flowers
By David Hockney
Located in London, GB
iPad drawing printed on wove paper 2021 88.9 x 63.5 cm Edition 16 of 50 Hand-signed, dated and numbered in pencil by David Hockney 20 Flowers and Some Bigger Pictures series Publ...
Paper, Digital
Damien Hirst "Theodora" Giclee Print, 2022
By Damien Hirst
Located in Astoria, NY
Damien Hirst (English, b. 1965), "Theodora", Laminated Giclee Print on Aluminum Composite Panel Screenprinted with Glitter, 2022, from "The Empresses" series, Heni Editions Catalogue...
Metal
$620Sale Price|20% Off
H 39.5 in W 24.5 in D 0.05 in
Original Arabic Art - Spain vintage travel poster
By José Ortega
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Arabic Art – Spain vintage travel poster. Artist: Jose Ortega. Size: 24.5" x 39.5". C. 1950. Original vintage European travel poster...
Lithograph
$258Sale Price|82% Off
H 27.56 in W 19.69 in
Different Roy I. Photography Art Print Limited Edition
Located in Slovak Republic, SK
I took this photo, when my daughter Kimi Salamonova finished the painting on the suit for a customer ( in the manner of Roy Lichtenstein). Limited edit...
Photographic Paper, Color, Digital Pigment
$181Sale Price|88% Off
H 23.63 in W 27.56 in
Abstract Fine Art Print, Signed Limited Edition of 15
By Sandra Salamonová
Located in Slovak Republic, SK
Fine Art Print. Limited edition of 15, signed by the author.
Photographic Paper, Color, Archival Pigment
It’s A Crime To Live With The Person You Don’t Love
By Tracey Emin
Located in London, GB
2021 Giclée print on 285gsm Hahnemühle Fine Art Pearl paper 29 x 42 cm Edition of 100 Hologram on the reverse of the print. Accompanied by the original Certificate of Authenticity ...
Paper, Giclée
Black and Silver
By El Anatsui
Located in Toronto, Ontario
El Anatsui (b. 1944) is an acclaimed Ghanian sculptor working out of Nigeria. Known for his large-scale tapestry-like metallic sculptures created from discarded resources, Anatsui dr...
Copper, Wire
Sold
H 64.18 in W 61.03 in D 1.97 in
Checked Key by El Anatsui, Limited Edition, Wall Sculpture, Metal, Contemporary
By El Anatsui
Located in Zug, CH
El Anatsui Checked Key 2022 Hand sculpted and formed UV cured acrylic resin inkjet on aluminum with irregular hand-cut edges and copper wire 163 × 155 × 5 cm (64.2 × 61 × 2 in) Signe...
Metal, Copper, Wire
Sold
H 64.18 in W 61.03 in D 1.97 in
Checked Key by El Anatsui, Limited Edition, Wall Sculpture, Metal, Contemporary
By El Anatsui
Located in Zug, CH
El Anatsui Checked Key 2022 Hand sculpted and formed UV cured acrylic resin inkjet on aluminum with irregular hand-cut edges and copper wire 163 × 155 × 5 cm (64.2 × 61 × 2 in) Signe...
Metal, Copper, Wire
Striped Flags
By El Anatsui
Located in New York, NY
This work is offered by CLAMP in New York City.
Metal