Deceased October 4, 2019
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In Memory
Paul Kwesi Bilson, best friend and bon vivant, passed away in Kumasi, Ghana, on Oct. 4 after a long illness.
Paul was born in Kumasi on Aug. 18, 1968, to John and Marion Bilson. Paul’s Ghanaian father was a physician, businessman and politician; his American mother is a former journalist. His family moved to Syracuse, N.Y., when he was 5, and in 1986, he graduated from Bishop Grimes High School, where he excelled at tennis and debating.
Upon arriving at Amherst, Paul immediately collected an outrageously diverse group of friends, though, as his former partner Bill O’Brien observed, he sometimes felt “too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids.” Paul graduated with a degree in English, cum laude, his thesis project including a black-and-white film envisioning the world he would come to create around him: multi-ethnic, art manifested in couture and movement, club music thumping around us.
Though he had been offered a position with a film company in Los Angeles upon graduation, Paul chose to move to New York to stay near family and pursue his obsession with fashion. After positions at Bloomingdale’s and Island Trading Co., he turned his attention to fine art, eventually cofounding an art licensing firm with his partner, in business and in life, Ryan Jensen.
Paul’s pride in being an Amherst alum was as infectious as it was fierce. He’s kept dozens of us close for 30 years by the sheer joy he radiated recalling how we’d all met, a joy that infused all his friendships.
Paul is survived by the mother he adored; his siblings, John David, Gretchen and Carol; his beloved nieces and nephews; Ryan; Bill; and the army of best friends he established in all corners of the world.
Adam Blackburn ’91