New York, Bard College, New York, one of the foremost liberal arts universities, has honoured Africa’s most decorated artist, Professor El Anatsui of Ghana with an honorary doctorate degree in Fine Arts at its 164th convocation ceremony.
According to Roland J. Augustine, a trustee of Bard College, El Anatsui, an Emeritus Professor of Sculpture, of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, (UNN), Anatsui was honoured “for his profound re-imagining of contemporary art in 50 years of teaching; empowering successive generations of artists to envision new possibilities for African subjectivity.
“Anatsui’s legacy echoes across our world, as his students forge art that expands our understanding of Africa’s past and future.”
He added: “In nearly 60 years of art making, Anatsui has challenged us to remember that art is the embodiment of a living thought, an opportunity for us to remake our world through action and understanding.”
Anatsui, who taught arts at the UNN for 40 years, has won art’s most prestigious international prizes such as the Venice Biennale’s “Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement”; and “the Premium Impériale”, the equivalent of visual art’s Nobel prize.
Among other honours is that of Honorary Academician of the Royal Society of Arts. Anatsui was included in Times 100 most influential persons for 2023.
Only last week, the UNN honoured him with with the Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa).
Bard College was founded in 1860 by John and Margaret Johnson Bard, in association with the leaders of the Episcopal Church in New York City.
It is located in New York state’s Duchess County in Red Hook town.
The university offers 35 different degree programmes and ranks fourth among all American universities as the most innovative.
Chinua Achebe, generally acknowledged as: “the father of modern African literature” was a professor of language and literature at Bard College for 19 years until his death in 2013.
