Painter, sculptor and designer · Ghana
Amon Kotei
Amon Kotei (1915–2011) was a Ghanaian artist — painter, sculptor, graphic designer and musician, and a surveyor by training — best known as the designer of Ghana's coat of arms, approved in March 1957, the month the country became independent. He received a state honour for the design in 1997 and died in 2011, aged 96.
Updated 2 min read
Amon Kotei was born on 24 May 1915 in La (Labadi), near Accra, then in the Gold Coast colony. He trained as a surveyor and draughtsman and worked as a cartographer and graphic artist, while also painting, sculpting and playing music. During the Second World War he served in the Royal West African Frontier Force and worked in the army's cartographic division, drawing maps and plans for soldiers at the front.
As independence approached, the new state needed symbols of its own. Kotei designed the coat of arms of Ghana, approved on 4 March 1957, two days before independence: a shield divided into four by a green cross rimmed with gold, bearing a ceremonial sword and staff, a castle on the sea, a cocoa tree and a mine, with a gold lion at the centre, supported by two golden eagles and crowned by a black star. The motto reads "Freedom and Justice".
Kotei continued to work as an artist for decades. On 7 March 1997 President Jerry Rawlings presented him with the Grand Medal, a state honour (civil division), for his design, and after he died on 17 October 2011, aged 96, Ghana's parliament recognised his contribution to Ghanaian art and heraldry. Accounts of the final approval differ: one says the design was approved by a British liaison officer and by Kwame Nkrumah, another that it was sent to the College of Heraldry in London.
How to look at the coat of arms: read it as a list. The cross, the sword and staff, the castle, the cocoa tree and the mine each stand for a part of national life, and the black star above is a familiar emblem of African freedom. That reading is this site's own.
Where to see the work
The coat of arms appears on Ghanaian official documents, coins and buildings, so the design is seen daily; Wikipedia's article on the coat of arms and the MyJoyOnline obituary are good places to read more. See also Kofi Antubam and our list of Ghanaian artists.
