Felicia Abban

Felicia Ewuraesi Abban (; 1936/1937 – 4 January 2024) was Ghana's first female professional photographer. She worked as a photographer for the country's first president, Kwame Nkrumah, for a number of years during the 1960s.

Early life Felicia Abban was born in the Western Region of Ghana and grew up in a seaside town named Sekondi-Takoradi. She was the eldest of six children and quickly followed her father's, J. E. Ansah, footsteps in photography, becoming his apprentice at the age of 14.

Abban studied under him for the next four years working on her craft and at the age of 18, she relocated from Takoradi to Accra, where she set up her own studio. In a few months she opened up her business, "Mrs. Felicia Abban's Day and Night Quality Art Studio" in the centre of Jamestown, Accra in 1955.

Felicia's husband, Richard Abban, designed the fabric with Kwame Nkrumah's portrait on flowers with a map of Ghana for the country's independence celebrations in 1957. Abban's studio was also close to other studios, including J. K. Bruce Vanderpuije's "Deo Gratias" and James Barnor's "Ever Young Studio". James Barnor's photography studio in the early 1950s captured intimate moments of luminaries and key political figures, including Ghana's first prime minister, Kwame Nkrumah, as he pushed for pan-African unity and independence from colonial rule. In Abban's early career she also worked for the Guinea Press Limited, now known as The Ghana Times, which was also the publishing house of Nkrumah's Convention People's Party when he became president.

Photography career Spanning 50 years, Abban's photography career began when she learned photography from her father, and became his only female apprentice at the time.

During the early independence, her portraits also used clothing as the main expression of her identity and were used as "calling cards" around her own muses. Her self-portraits resembled fashion magazine images with an added more contemporary context. What is consistent throughout these diverse photographs is the way in which Abban used clothing to visibly articulate a feminine identity that played with the traditional and contemporary in an artful hybridity described as urbane and trans-Atlantic.

Abban's work was also showcased in the 12th edition of the 2019 Bamako Encounters. Abban's private photo collection consists of self-portraits before she attended events. She retired from photography as a result of a worsening arthritis condition.

Personal life Abban was married to Robert Abban, the man who designed the fabric to commemorate Ghana's independence celebration in 1957 with Kwame Nkrumah's portrait featured on flowers with the Ghana map.