Born 1966. Senior and seminal Coastal region Golden Age movie poster painter who actively taught a small cadre of ultimately like-styled, detail-driven poster artists as his original apprentices: Samuel, Manu, and Nyankumah. An apprentice of the roadside artist, Mr. Smart. Very active from 1987 until 1999, basically the entire Golden Age of movie poster painting. A teacher and master painter who excels in technical skills as well as imagination. Obsessive about detail and color. Loves to pack in the images. Quite capable of using ten colors in one single head of hair, creating a veritable rainbow coalition of hair color. Every square centimeter fussed with and over-painted in his best work, when he spends the time. Prone to bouts of uncontrolled rippleosity; gives an almost topographical feel to clothing and flesh. Loves towering cumulonimbus clouds of billowing fire. Never saw a rifle or pistol whose design he couldn’t improve upon; created the impossible such as a double barrel side-by-side pump action shot gun! Truly lets the fire roar.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS:

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: “Extreme Canvas”, 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

2007:  “Black Like We”, Feldman-Horn Gallery, Harvard-Westlake School, North Hollywood, CA

2008: “Extreme Canvas: Hand Painted Movie Posters from Ghana”, ArcLight Cinemas Hollywood, CA

2009: “Out of Africa: Obama and McCain Praise Portraits and Visual Narratives”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles; Reviewed in the Los Angeles Times on May 21, 1999, by art critic David Pagel

2009: “No This Is It: Michael Jackson, 25 Years of Praise Portraits”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2010: “Highlights from the Permanent Collection”, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA 

2012: “Michael Jackson in the After-Life: Praise Portraits and Commentary Paintings from Ghana”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2013: Wow Women, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

2013: The Horror The Horror!, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, curated by Brandon Boyd

2013: “Viva Mandela!”, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

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, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Chinatown, Los Angeles 

2016: Kung Fu in Africa: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana (1985-1999), Hanart TZ, Hong Kong

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

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

2019: Macro/Micro: Bronze/Canvas: Gwynn Murrill & Bob Graham, Africatta & Joe Mensah, Ernie Wolfe Gallery, Los Angeles

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

PUBLICATIONS:

2000: Extreme Canvas: Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe III, Dilettante Press, 2000

2000: Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine, Ernie Wolfe III, Nov/Dec 2000, pages 44-51

2003  New York Times Magazine, “Why We Love Fashion? It’s Universal; Planet Ghana”, Ernie Wolfe III, February 23, 2003

2009: African Arts, Volume 42, number 3, 20, Autumn 2009, “The Radiance of the King”, Don Cosentino

2012: Extreme Canvas 2: The Golden Age of Hand-Painted Movie Posters from Ghana, Ernie Wolfe III, Kesho/Malaika Press, 2012

COLLECTION:

Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA