Ablade Glover is a Ghanaian painter and professor best known for his colorful and highly textured oil paintings of Ghanaian marketplaces, landscapes, and urban spaces. Glover’s paintings appear abstract up close, but when viewed at a distance, they depict the bustle,energy, and brightness of Ghanaian life. Glover was born in Accra, Ghana in 1934, and he was a student at Kumasi University of Science and Technology when Ghana gained independence from Great Britain in 1957. The new Ghanaian government, led by Dr. Kwame Nkumah encouraged artisans to embrace their local culture, while also learning western skills. Glover accepted a scholarship to study textiles at London’s Central School of Art and Design, as training to work in a textile factory in Ghana. However, when Glover returned to Ghana, the factory had not yet been built, and he was sent to teach art education at a local college. In 1964, Glover returned to England to study Art Education at Newcastle University. He then took his studies to the United States, where he earned a Master’s degree at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, and a PhD at the Ohio State University in Columbus. Glover then returned to Ghana, where he taught for 20 years at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. He retired from teaching in 1994, to focus entirely on painting and directing his Accra-based gallery, Artists Alliance, which is dedicated to bringing attention to traditional and contemporary African art. Nowadays, Glover’s work can be seen around the world, from the Imperial Palace Collection of Japan, to the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Glover is also a recipient of the AFGRAD Alumni Award by the African-American Institute in New York, and a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of Art in London.