Ladi Kwali

Ladi Dosei Kwali (c. 1925 – 12 August 1984) was a Nigerian potter, ceramicist and teacher, born in the village of Kwali, in the present Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory; she took the name of her community as her surname (Wikipedia; The Guardian, 2020). Trained in the Gbagyi women's tradition of pottery, she joined Michael Cardew's Pottery Training Centre at Abuja, the present Suleja, in 1954, combined the coiled, incised pots of her tradition with stoneware, glazes and kiln firing, and showed her work in Europe and the United States.

She grew up in a family that kept the women's craft of pottery and learned it as a child from her aunt, who used the Gwarin Yamma method of coiling and pinching (The Guardian). Her early work was hand-built water pots, storage jars, cooking pots, bowls and flasks decorated with incised geometric and animal designs. Several were bought by the Emir of Abuja, Alhaji Suleiman Barau, in whose palace Michael Cardew saw them in 1950 (Wikipedia; The Guardian).

Cardew founded the Pottery Training Centre at Abuja in 1952, and in 1954 Ladi Kwali enrolled as its first woman potter, learning wheel-throwing, glazing, kiln firing, saggar-making and the use of slip, and later teaching there (Wikipedia; The Guardian). Her characteristic pot was coiled in stoneware clay, decorated with lizard patterns and fired with a dark glaze. Her work was shown at the Berkeley Galleries in London and in exhibitions of Abuja pottery organised by Cardew in 1958, 1959 and 1962; she gave demonstrations in Britain in 1961 and in France and Germany, and toured the United States with Cardew in 1972 (Wikipedia). By 1965 four more Gwari women had joined the centre, working in a workshop they called Dakin Gwari (Wikipedia). She remained with the centre until her death in Minna on 12 August 1984, aged 59 (The Guardian).

She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1963, the year she also received the Silver Award for Excellence at the 10th International Exhibition for Ceramic Art at the Smithsonian Institution (The Guardian). Ahmadu Bello University awarded her an honorary doctorate in 1977; she received the Nigerian National Order of Merit in 1980 and was made an Officer of the Order of the Niger in 1981 (Wikipedia; The Guardian).

Her portrait is on the back of the 20-naira note, making her the first woman on Nigerian currency (The Guardian). The Abuja Pottery was renamed the Ladi Kwali Pottery, and Ladi Kwali Road and the Ladi Kwali Convention Centre at the Sheraton Hotel in Abuja are named after her (Wikipedia; The Guardian). Her work is held in collections including the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Google marked her with a Doodle on 16 March 2022 (Wikipedia).