Ladi kwali school

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Ladi kwali death

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Ladi Kwali

Nigerian potter (c. 1925–1984)

Ladi Kwali or Ladi Dosei Kwali, OONNNOM, MBE (c. 1925 – 12 August 1984)^[1] was a Nigerian potter, ceramicist and educator.^[2]

Ladi Kwali was born in the village of Kwali in the Gwari region of Northern Nigeria, where pottery was an indigenous occupation among women.^[3] She learned pottery as a child through her aunt, using the traditional method of coiling. She made large pots for use as water jars, cooking pots, bowls, and flasks from coils of clay, beaten from the inside with a flat wooden paddle. They were decorated with incised geometric and stylized figurative patterns, including scorpions, lizards, crocodiles, chameleons, snakes, birds, and fish.^[4]

Her pots were noted for their beauty of form and decoration, and she was recognized regionally as a gifted and eminent potter.^[5] Several were acquired by the emir of Abuja, Alhaji Suleiman Barau,^[6] in whose home they were seen by Michael Cardew in 1950.

Early life

Miss Kwali was born in the small vill

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Ladi Kwali first trained with her aunt in her village located in what is now the Kwali Area Council of the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory. Her talent was recognised early by the Emir of Abuja (now Suleja), Alhaji Suleiman Barau, who collected her pots for display in his palace where they caught the attention of the potter Michael Cardew (1901-1983) during his 1950 tour for his extensive report on pottery development for the Nigerian colonial government. After M. Cardew founded the Pottery Training Centre (PTC) in Abuja in 1952, L. Kwali became its first female trainee in December 1954. She completed her training in January 1959 and was employed at the centre.
Although M. Cardew taught her wheel-throwing, L. Kwali used the centre’s stoneware clay to create pots using the traditional free-hand modelling technique in which she was adept. She decorated them with poetically incised lines rendered in bands that left ample space in-between for her rendition of schematised figures of scorpions, fishes, birds, snakes, chameleons, crocodiles and lizards. The deeply incis

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Lady Kwali: a synthesis of indigenous and modern

Alayo Akinkugbe

Ladi Kwali (1925-1984) was one of the first Nigerian potters to achieve international recognition as a coil pottery artist, and her works engage with both indigenous pre-20th century traditions and twentieth century Nigerian modernism. Born in the village of Kwali, in the Gwari region of central Nigeria, her earliest works were influenced by the pottery of the Gbagyi ethnic group, part of an ancient Nigerian tradition of work in clay which includes the terracotta sculptures of the Nok. Although ceramics are frequently labelled as ‘craft’ as opposed to art in Western narratives of art history, the perception of Kwali in Nigeria, and arguably internationally, is very much as an artist and not as a craftswoman. Her works can be found in eminent private art collections in Nigeria, and in major museums abroad, such as the British Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution.