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
$2,000
H 40 in W 28 in
Stratosphere I - large format photograph of abstract liquid water cloudscapes
By Christian Stoll
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale photography of mesmerizing color compositions of liquid cloudscape painting in water, hypnotizing abstract liquidscapes from the bo...
Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment, Giclée
$5,800
H 48 in W 100 in
Hemisphere IV - large format photograph of abstract liquid cloudscapes in water
By Christian Stoll
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale photography of mesmerizing color compositions of liquid cloudscape painting in water, hypnotizing abstract liquidscapes from the body o...
Giclée, Archival Ink, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment
$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
$4,400
H 48 in W 53 in
Stratosphere III Large Format Photograph, Abstract Liquid Cloudscapes
By Christian Stoll
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale photography of mesmerizing color compositions of liquid cloudscape painting in water, hypnotizing abstract liquidscapes from the body of works titled 'Stratosphere' STRA...
Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment, Giclée
Old Farm, 26.11.23, 30 Min
By Josh Rowell
Located in London, GB
Josh Rowell Old Farm, 26.11.23, 30 Min, 2023 Giclee and acrylic on canvas 50 x 70 cm 19.7 x 27.6 inches Josh Rowell generates his artistic vision by focusing on technological advances that shape our contemporary lives, communicating our increasingly mediated human interactions within the confines of visual art. The artist juxtaposes traditional, handmade techniques; with the intangible nature of the digital age. This position between the real and virtual produces a complex body of work that explores and reshapes information, highlights changes in human interation and celebrates the hand-made in a time that is increasingly being enveloped by the virtual. Born in 1990 in Kent, England, Rowell graduated from Kingston Art School in 2013, where he received a first class BFA with honours. Following a course in Art Criticism at Central Saint Martins college, Rowell returned to Kingston Art School for an MFA in 2015, where he was awarded a first- class distinction. His works have been exhibited in London, New York, Miami, Seattle, Basel, Hong Kong and Mexico and his works are part of public collections including the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Gregorian Foundation in Washington, London Kingston University’s contemporary art collection, and the Matilda collection in San Miguel De Allende. In 2017/18 he had his first museum exhibition at the Palacio Nacional de Guatemala. Rowell won the Public Choice award at the VIA Arts Prize 2017, and was included in Future Now, the yearly publication by Aesthetica listing the 100 most interesting emerging artists of the year. In 2019 he was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London and later in the year was invited to participate in the 9th edition of the Dentons Art Prize for which he was announced as joint-winner in 2020. Later in 2020 he was selected for the group exhibition ‘False Memory’ at Rugby Art...
Canvas, Acrylic, Giclée
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
Beautiful, Proudly Accented Tourbillon Painting
By Damien Hirst
Located in Toronto, Ontario
Damien Hirst (b. 1965) is one of the most divisive, high-profile, and arguably misunderstood artists of the contemporary era. Building on the legacy of his celebrated Spin Paintings...
Canvas, Giclée
$3,600
H 48 in W 48 in
Hemisphere I - large format photograph of abstract liquid cloudscapes in water
By Christian Stoll
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale photography of mesmerizing color compositions of liquid cloudscape painting in water, hypnotizing abstract liquidscapes from the body of works titled 'Hemisphere' Hemisp...
Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Archival Pigment, Giclée
$6,800
H 58 in W 58 in D 1.5 in
Hemisphere I (framed) - large photograph of abstract liquid cloudscapes in water
By Christian Stoll
Located in San Francisco, CA
large scale framed photography of mesmerizing color compositions of liquid cloudscape painting in water, hypnotizing abstract liquidscapes from the body of works titled 'Hemisphere' ...
Plexiglass, Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Giclée
$2,200
H 24.6 in W 40 in
Cloud Study VI - large scale photograph of dramatic momochromatic cloudscape sky
By Frank Schott
Located in San Francisco, CA
An homage to Caspar David Friedrich, towering thunder clouds over the Pacific Ocean, from a series of dramatic cloud atlas observations and abstract skyscapes above the winter sea, c...
Archival Paper, Photographic Paper, Giclée, Archival Pigment, Archival Ink
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
$306Sale 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
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