Felicia Abban

Felicia Abban (née Felicia Gyasiwa Ewuraesi Ansah, 1936– 2024) was the only daughter among five children born to eminent Gold Coast photographer J. E. Ansah and Theresa Yankey, a textile trader. Her work in studio photography, photojournalism, and event photography began in the 1950s and spanned over six decades of practice. Throughout her illustrious and industrious career, Abban chalked many firsts: she was generally regarded as Ghana’s first known professional woman photographer; she was the first woman president of the Ghana Union of Photographers (GUP) and was also the first woman to have joined Ghana’s presidential team of photographers in the First Republic (1960– 1966). After marrying Richard Bonso Abban in 1956, she moved from Sekondi to Accra where she set up her photo studio in the central business district. During the Republic, she documented many significant political events as a member of the official team of presidential photographers, all the while maintaining her studio practice. Abban’s legacy transcends photography into cinema as she played a vital early role in mentoring seminal filmmaker Kwaw Ansah (one of her younger siblings) in lens-based practice. She ultimately retired from her practice in 2017. Her photographic work made its first public appearance in an exhibition in the group show Accra: Portraits of a City (2017) at the ANO gallery in Accra. Abban was also one of six artists – alongside El Anatsui, Lynette Yiadom Boakye, Ibrahim Mahama, Selasi Awusi Sosu, and John Akomfrah – selected to feature at the first-ever Ghana pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale 2019. In the same year, her photographs were exhibited at the 12th edition of Bamako Encounters: Biennale of African Photography

Felicia Abban  (1936-2024), self-portrait (20), 1960s, Mrs. Felicia Abban Photos, courtesy of Abban estate.