Willis Bell

Willis Eugene Bell was born on October 2, 1924 in Rangoon, Burma, to Methodist missionary parents from the United States. He attended Woodstock School in Mussoorie, India, the first international boarding school in Asia. There, in the foothills of the Himalayas, he was able to discover and nurture an interest in photography, which would play an important role in his later career. In the 1940s he joined the U.S. Merchant Marine and went on to study at Yale University from 1947-51. Thereafter, his extensive international travel took him to South Africa where Jim Bailey, Drum Magazine's publisher, urged Bell to go to Ghana, the first African country south of the Sahara to declare independence from Great Britain. Bell's initial introduction to Ghana was through a memorable 1958 road trip with Henry Ofori, then Accra editor of the magazine. The spirit and vitality of the independence era with its artistic and intellectual energy captured his interest and he decided to settle there permanently.

Bell continued to travel the length and breadth of his adopted country, capturing the rhythms of rural and urban life; its modernization and industrialization; political events; cultural festivities; and traditional ceremonies. His portraits range from celebrated personalities such as Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana, to ordinary people expressing the full range of human emotion. He also established an excellent reputation as an early practitioner of industrial photography and advertising. His aerial photographs, documenting the creation of Lake Volta -the largest man-made lake in the world by volume -are particularly noteworthy.

Bell's best-known published works are two collaborative photo essays with Ghanaian author Efua Sutherland. The first of these was Playtime in Africa (1960), which juxtaposes lyrical prose poems with images of modern Ghanaian children in playful settings. In so doing, it contributes to a more positive perception of Africa as well as to the growing recognition of the role of play in development. The second, The Roadmakers (1961), was commissioned by the Ghana Information Service to visually project the positive spirit of Ghanaians and the country's potential for progress.

Habitually, Willis Bell would walk his dog at dawn, coffee cup in hand, contemplating nature and planning his day. In addition to photography, Bell was keenly interested in horticulture, agriculture, and sustainable management of the environment. He was also a designer and builder whose aesthetic approach blended clean, contemporary lines with the architectural styles he encountered throughout Ghana, by which he was clearly influenced. The home he built in Accra featured a grassed courtyard with textured walls incorporating delicately sculpted reliefs and other elements signaling a distinct homage to northern Ghanaian building forms. He often used this as a backdrop for his individual and family portraits.

Bell was active in the cultural life of Ghana, joining well-known artistic and literary figures such as Efua Sutherland and J. H. Kwabena Nketia with whom he served as a founding member of one of Ghana's first publishing houses, Afram Publications, in 1973. He contributed to the design and construction of the Ghana Drama Studio in Accra and the Kodzidan or "Story House" in the village of Atwia in Ghana's Central Region—a community that is featured in many of his photographs. He also took an interest in Mmofra Foundation, a civil society organization centered on the cultural enrichment of young people.

The 1970s in Ghana were characterized by a severe economic downturn which negatively impacted the demand for photographic work. Disenchanted, Bell eventually gave up his career as a photographer and turned to small-scale agriculture and fish-farming near Mankessim in Ghana's Central Region where he built up a self-sufficient existence. Here, Bell lived out his later years with an uncompromising commitment to self-reliance and the application of hand, heart, and head to sustainable development. Locally, he was often perceived as an eccentric, but pleasant, nonconformist driving his Vespa scooter, keeping bees and making candles from beeswax, growing grapes and pressing wine, and distilling vodka from sweet potatoes. Though his visits to Accra declined markedly, his reputation ensured a steady stream of visitors from all over the world who made it out to his bucolic farm for conversations on diverse matters, but especially on farming and photography. Upon his death, Willis Bell bequeathed his photographic collection to Mmofra Foundation.