Ladi Kwali was born in 1925 in the village of Kwali, Abuja to a family
of potters. Her first name ‘Ladi’ means ‘born on Sunday’ while the Kwali
is the name of her Gwari town. In her family, the women were renowned
for making outstandingly beautiful pots which were not just very
impressive in terms of aesthetics but also had great functional value.
These pots were used for ornamental purposes in the residences of the
aristocrats while they found general use in storing water and in the
kitchen to cook.
It was while growing up as a child that she learnt the traditional art
of pottery using a method referred to as ‘coiling and pinching’. Though
Ladi's mother was herself a potter, she served as an apprentice under an
aunt. As a young child, she picked up things very fast, especially in
her surroundings watching adults doing it. With time, Ladi Kwali would
become even much better and renowned than those she learnt the art from.
Her designs were truly very beautiful and a sight to behold. Once these
designs are done, the next thing is to collect them and put in a blazing
flame fuelled with dry grass. That was the tradition for thousands of
years in Kwali and the women potter stuck to their age-long tradition.
It was at the palace of the Emir of Abuja that the English studio
potter, Michael Cardew, saw her pots on a visit in 1950. Cardew was
quite astonished at the level of detail and skill that must have gone
into the making of the pots. Michael Cardew (who later stayed behind
working in West Africa for 20 years) took it upon himself to proclaim
the talents of the legendary potter to the whole world and that was how
Ladi Kwali’s trip to fame was initiated and her works remain legendary
as an icon of modern art in Nigeria.
In 1954, the Northern Regional Government enrolled Ladi Kwali into the
pottery center of the Department of Commerce and Industry and she became
the very first woman potter enrolled at the center. Here, she was
exposed to modern methods which she adopted. For the first time, she
started using the potter’s wheel and with time, her skills even became
much more refined. In addition to making pots, she also made eating
bowls, dishes and beakers with outstanding Sgraffito designs. Sgrafitto
is a type of technique in which layers of contrasting colours are
applied to the surface of an unfired ceramic then scraped or scratched
to produce a drawing in the outline. Even though Ladi Kwali came to the
pottery center to learn modern techniques such as throwing, decorating
and glazing, she never abandoned her old traditional methods of making
and decorating the pots with bare hands. All she did was to perfectly
blend the two techniques together or use whichever one suited her
purpose.
At this point, Cardew, who had been following Kwali's progress, became
increasingly impressed with her works and it did not take long before he
sent her works to the United States,Britain and other European nations.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, her works were already exhibited at
the Berkeley Galleries in London where she totally got her audience love
struck.
In 1958, 1959 and 1962, Cardew further organized international
exhibitions of her works. In 1961, Ladi Kwali was in Britain where she
gave demonstrations of her skills at the Royal College in Farnham and
Wenford Bridge. Later, she would do the same in France and Germany. The
praises of her works was so great that by 1963, she was awarded Member
of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE)
By 1972, she was all over America touring cities demonstrating her now
world-famous coiling technique in which you bend over and move round the
pot.
Back home in Nigeria, Kwali was honored in many ways. In 1984, The Abuja
Pottery Centre was renamed Ladi Kwali Pottery Center in her honour as
well as the Ladi Kwali Way in Maitama, Abuja which bears her name till
date. She is also featured on the Nigerian 20 Naira note.
She was honored with a doctorate degree by the Ahmadu Bello University
in Zaria, Kaduna State . She had been a part-time lecturer and
demonstrator at the university.
In 1980, the Nigerian Government (from the Cabinet Office of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria) invested on her with the insignia of the Nigerian
National Merit Award (NNMA), the highest national honor for academic
achievement. This award in itself turned her into ‘an institution of
Art’. She further received the national honour of the Officer of the
Order of the Niger (OON) in 1981.
She died on the 12th of August 1984 at the age of 59 in Minna, shortly
after Cardew’s death the previous year. Upon her death, many of her
students took over and continued the art at the Abuja Pottery Training
Center.
Today, many of her works like the Gwari water pot remain in the British
Museum where tourists from all over the globe still marvel at the nimble
fingers of a fine Nigerian woman.
Source: Naija Archives, Craft Horizons, Volume 32, American Crafts Council., 1972, Journal of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Volumes 1-5, The Commission, 1992, Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia edited by Carol Elizabeth Mayer, Anthony Shelton
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