At 85 years, Ablade Glover, a retired Ghanaian professor of Art, is not tired. He is still the undeniable artistic talent he was in his early 30s. Now in his retirement, he is able to grant more time to painting, and express himself through vibrant colors and textured canvases resulting in countless masterpieces.
His body of work stands as an invaluable chronicle of the people, landscape and the spirit of Africa, while his canvasses overflow with vivid flecks of warm colour in celebration of Africa’s bustling scenes, boisterous energy and visual richness.
Most of his paintings are done with palette knife instead of brush, which he claims is too soft.
Collectors across the world can testify to his creative ingenuity. Most recently, at the Modern and Contemporary African Art sale, which held on October 15, 2019 in London, five of his paintings were highly sought-after by notable collectors.
Moreover, the renowned artist recently celebrated his 85th birthday with an exhibition of new works at his London gallery and those who witnessed the exhibition applauded the sheer ingenuity of the masterpieces.
Lovers of his works, his students, galleries and collectors alike, are always looking forward to his birthday because of the tradition of hosting a special exhibition of new works to celebrate his birthdays.
While that is an intrigue, it connects his followers more to his works and humble personality.
Speaking on his birthday exhibitions, Glover says, “I started hosting birthday exhibitions in 1970 with October Gallery. We had them in 1975, 1980 and so on. For me, these exhibitions are quite significant as they mark my periodic evolution”.
His style has been described as “swirling between abstraction and realism”, and his subject matter typically favours large urban landscapes, lorry parks, shantytowns, thronging markets and studies of the women of Ghana.
The retired professor, artist and educator, is a child of Ghana’s revolution; an early life experience that shaped his artistic works. “I remember as a young boy attending numerous nationalists’ rallies all over the city and hearing our leaders as they convinced people to rise up and seize their freedom. I was very young and probably highly impressionable but I know that the education I received was due to the doors they opened for me and my generation. I realized early the need to educate our people to participate in nation-building. These lessons have stayed with me and are reflected in my works”, he says.
Beyond the revolution, Glover speaks of other things that influenced his works. “If you notice, you see a lot of women in my work and people do ask me, why do you paint so many women? The first time I was asked the question, I didn’t think about it. I just opened my mouth and said because they are more beautiful than men. That was not a serious answer. It was later, thinking about it, that it struck me they have courage. Women of Africa have some courage and they show it. When they walk the street, they are elegant. They are courageous, they are brave. When they are going about, they show it. Men do not do that”, he explains.
As much as the artist loves to paint women, he also loves to paint the crowd movement and the crowd spirit.
But in a review of his 85 years practice, keen observers will notice the shift and evolution in his artistic career. From mixing colours, applying them to the canvas, he progressed to mixing the same colours, working with varying tones and now to working with contrasting colours; a technique, which he says is something that surprises him.
The intrigue again is that even at 85 years, Glover is still evolving and most importantly, experimenting with new colours. But no matter the experiment or shift, the subject matter in his work stays the same.
Looking back at his successful career, Glover is happy with some legacies. In the early 90s, he used Glo, his art gallery in Kumasi, to offer space to a lot of trained artists and those who are struggling to practice and exhibit their works free of charge.
Years later, when GLO was no longer working, he created Artist Alliance Gallery to celebrate and exhibit local West African artists. He is fulfilled that artists are encouraged, careers built, and lives bettered through his platform.
It is of note that Glover has exhibited widely with works held in many prestigious private and public collections, including at the Imperial Palace of Japan, the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
More importantly, Gallery 1957, a Ghanaian art gallery, will be exhibiting his works at the ART X Lagos 2019. Lovers of his works are urged to visit Booth 22 at the art fair holding at Federal Palace Hotel and Casino, Victoria Island, Lagos from November 1 – 3, 2019.
OBINNA EMELIKE
