Grace Salome Abra Anku Kwami was born to an Ewé Christian family who lived in the hills of what was then British Togoland, and is now the Volta Region of Ghana. Ahead of her peers and at a very young age, she started her formal education at her father’s mission station. G. Kwami’s father was a catechist and head teacher. She later entered the Basel Mission Women’s Training College in Agogo, in the Ashanti Region of Ghana, where she undertook vocational (Domestic/Home Science) and Teacher training. With her Teachers’ Certificate “A” from the Training College, G. Kwami taught for several years before enrolling in the Specialist Art and Crafts Programme at Achimota College in Accra, Ghana. This institution would move to the Kumasi College of Art (KCA), which became the Kumasi College of Technology (KCT), now known as Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), where she further her education in Art in 1951/1952. G. Kwami is arguably one of the first women to be academically trained in Fine Art in Ghana.

With her fascination with clay at a very tender age, G. Kwami (also known as ‘Da Grace’), began to model this medium before the age of 5. She particularly developed her interest in portraiture (figuration) during her studies at KCA. In her portraiture, she applied a number of Western academic training techniques in the classical genre to her own visual language. She created works with great expression and subjectivity, portraying common people, usually women and children. This approach can perhaps be said to be her contribution to the Ghanaian version of African Modernism. She worked in both two and three dimensions, from series of drawings in pen and ink on paper, printmaking, paintings and textiles to bas-reliefs, ceramic sculptures, life-sized figural sculptures and jewellery, amongst other media. G. Kwami took inspiration from her background and environment. However, she focused mainly on figurative portraiture, such as herTwo Heads – Boy and Girl (1995) and Bust of Woman with Beads (1995), which was distinctive during the post-Independence era.

G. Kwami associated with several great minds, leading talents in the modern arts and politicians in Ghana. She has been reported to have co-founded the Sankofa Movement with such artists as Kofi Antubam (1922–1964) and Vincent Kofi (1923–1974), and whose other members included Dr. Oku Ampofo (1908–1998) and Theodosia Okoh (1922–2015). From the 1950s to mid-1960s, this group believed art to be a tool for expressing Ghana’s identity, values and nationhood. In around the same period, she worked at the National Museum in Accra, as a sculptor and restorer.

G. Kwami participated in a number of local and international exhibitions. Her works were included in the exhibition African Modernism in America, 1947–67, by the Harmon Foundation. She was cited in the Ghana Freedom pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2019: 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice. Her works are in public and private collections including the National Museum of Ghana in Accra; the Volta Regional Museum, Ho (Ghana Museums and Monuments Board); and in Europe and the USA. G. Kwami is the mother of artist Atta Kwami (1956–2021).