In 1990, Anatsui had his first important group show at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. That same year, he was also one of three artists singled out in the exhibition "Contemporary African Artists: Changing Traditions", which was extended for five years. In 2015, he was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, the Venice Biennale’s highest honor. In 2019, Haus der Kunst presented a wide-ranging traveling survey of his work titled “El Anatsui: Monumental Scale”, curated by Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu, and accompanied by a catalogue published by Prestel.
His works are in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Indianapolis Museum of Art; British Museum, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, among many others. Major exhibitions of his work have appeared at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown (2011); Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2010); National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka (2010); Rice University Art Gallery, Houston (2010); Venice Biennale (2007); and the Biennale of African Art, Senegal (2006).