Ladi Kwali

Ladi Kwali was born around 1925 in the village of Kwali, Niger State, into a Gwari potting household. From childhood, she mastered traditional pottery, creating large storage vessels adorned with stylized incised animal and geometric motifs including lizards, crocodiles, and scorpions using local burnishing methods.

In 1954, English potter Michael Cardew established the Abuja Pottery Centre and recruited Kwali as its first female student and instructor. Fusing indigenous Gwari pinch-and-coil techniques with high-temperature stoneware kiln firing and glazes, she created iconic ceramics exhibited at London's Berkeley Galleries, Smithsonian Institution, and across Europe. Awarded an MBE in 1962 and an honorary doctorate from Ahmadu Bello University, she is famously portrayed on Nigeria's twenty naira banknote.