Dr. Oku Ampofo was among Ghana’s first medical doctors and is remembered for his influential sculptural practice that gave tangible expression to the Akan philosophy of Sankofa, the belief in returning to the past to reclaim wisdom for the future.

By the early 1950s, Ampofo’s experimental practice had matured into a distinctive personal idiom characterized by elongated cylindrical torsos, sinuous limbs, and stylised distortions of the human form. Working primarily in wood, cement, and terrazzo, he developed a sculptural language that merged the spiritual gravitas of classical African forms with the dynamism of modernist abstraction. His inspirations drew deeply from Akan, Dogon, Yoruba, and Baule traditions, resulting in figures that were simultaneously ancestral and avant-garde.

Among his most notable public commissions are Prophet of the Sky God (Institute of African Studies, Legon) and Market Acquaintance (formerly on the grounds of the Ambassador Hotel, Accra). His works have been exhibited and collected across Africa, Europe, and the United States, including presentations at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and installations throughout Ghana’s cultural institutions.

Ampofo was also a cultural visionary who saw art as a means of national renewal. In a 1968 statement to the Journal of the Arts Council of Ghana, he wrote, “With proper guidance, Sankofa may well see a definite renaissance in Ghanaian civilisation.” His commitment to recovering indigenous knowledge systems and translating them into modern form positioned him as one of the earliest sculptural voices of Ghanaian modernism, a bridge between the ancient and the emergent.