Emmanuel Ablade Glover (b. 1934) is one of Ghana's most celebrated painters and educators, widelyregarded as a seminal figure in West African modern and contemporary art. Born in the La community ofAccra during the British colonial era, Glover came of age alongside his nation independence movement,entering Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in 1957, the year Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to gain independence from colonial rule.

His training spanned three continents. Glover studied textile design at London Central School of Art andDesign (1959–1962) on a government scholarship, later studied art education at the University ofNewcastle upon Tyne (1964–1965), and went on to earn a maste degree at Kent State University and aPhD from Ohio State University in 1974. Back in Ghana, he became Associate Professor, Head of theDepartment of Art Education, and Dean of the College of Art at Kwame Nkrumah University, shaping generations of Ghanaian artists.

Glover is best known for his richly textured, palette-knife oil paintings of Ghanaian marketplaces, crowds,and urban landscapes. His compositions are built from dense fields of vivid color and impasto that readas near-abstraction up close, but resolve at a distance into bustling scenes of everyday life. The market,populated overwhelmingly by women, is his enduring and most sought after subject. The works in theAfrica First collection are emblematic examples of this practice.

Glover founded the Artists Alliance Gallery in Accra in the early 1990s, cultivating international attentionfor Ghanaian art. His honors include the Flagstar Award, the Order of the Volta, and a Life Fellowship ofthe Royal Society of Arts. His work is held in numerous distinguished public and private collectionsworldwide, including the Imperial Palace of Japan, UNESCO headquarters in Paris, Chicago HareInternational Airport, and many more institutions across Africa, Europe, and the United States.