LADI KWALI, Nigeria’s Most Famous Potter

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.

Acknowledgement: Abiyamo, Tun Telev
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