Golden Age Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (1985-1999)
“The first rule of art criticism is that weird stuff springs up where you don’t mow. The second rule of art criticism is that the weirdest and best stuff springs up where you would have never thought to mow in the first place. The paintings in this volume represent some of the weirdest and best: Africa’s revenge against Picasso and the primitivo fads of early modernism.”
The Ernie Wolfe Gallery houses the world’s largest collection of Golden Age Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana in the 1980s and 1990s. All our posters are field collected by Ernie Wolfe III and we continue to work with and support the artists in Ghana to this day. These Golden Age posters have been exhibited in prestigious galleries and museums in Hong Kong, New York, Los Angeles, and around the world.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
1993: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles
1996: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica
1999: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles
2001: Death-Stalking Sleep-Walking Barbarian Ninja Terminators: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA, Los Angeles, (voted best exhibition of 2001 by LA Weekly)
2001 – 2002: Extreme Canvas: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles
2001: Cavin Morris Gallery, New York, NY September 2001
2003: Seven from Ghana, Sundance Film Festival, Park City, UT January 2003
2003: Outrageous Supercharge: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA
2004: Africa Screams, Iwalewa-Haus Afrikazentrum der Universitat Bayreuth, 2004
Traveled to Vienna November 2004 – February 2005
2006: Extreme Canvas, Center for African American Culture, Pittsburgh, PA
2006: Serpents, Mermaids and Action Heroes, Parkland College Art Gallery, Champaign, IL
2008: “Extreme Canvas: Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana”, ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood, CA
2013: Wow Women, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles
2013: The Horror The Horror!, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, curated by Brandon Boyd
2014: Knock Off – Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, CA
2014: “Ghana Pop”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles
2014: Continental Convergence: Hand-Painted Martial Arts Posters from Ghana, Mandarin Plaza, Chinatown, Los Angeles
2016: Kung Fu in Africa: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (1985-1999), Hanart TZ, Hong Kong
2017: Reel Art: Movie Posters From Ghana, Bowers Museum, Santa Ana
2017 – 2018 Lingnan Hung Kuen Across the Century: Kung Fu Narratives in Cinema and Community, Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre, Hong Kong; City University of Hong Kong; Art Lab, Lausanne, Switzerland
2017 - 2018: Ghana Paints Hollywood: Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT curated by Ernie Wolfe III
2019 – 2020, Baptized by Beefcake: The Golden Age of Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Poster House, New York, NY co-curated by Ernie Wolfe III and Angelina Lippert
“Starting in about 1985 and continuing until just before the millennium, there existed a Golden Age of hand-painted imagination-driven movie posters in Ghana. This was a time when market forces from abroad were minimal and these unique and exotic paintings were created solely for the local Ghanaian movie viewing audience.
The best and brightest artists of a generation* competed fiercely and directly in the public eye for this exciting new work, being careful to sign and date the great majority of these paintings. Their hand-made artistry stood its ground against the inevitable tide of printings technology that globalization thrust upon them, and for a short while, carved out a small oasis in time where man actually won out over machines!”
*mostly young, but older as well! Alex Boateng, Leonardo, Joe Mensah, Sammy Mensah, Charles Manu, Dan Nyenkumah, Muslim, D.A. Jasper, Stoger, Heavy J, Bright Obeng, Gilbert Forson, Sowwy, Death Is Wonder, Africatta, Francisco, Babs, Kofi Issa, Francis, Socrates, T-Brew, Lawson Chindayen, and others.
If you would like to inquire about any art you see on our site or in our collection, let us know and we would be happy to share more details or help you book an appointment!