Ben Enwonwu in focus, 'resurrects' tomorrow
By Kabir Alabi Garba and Tajudeen Sowole
"IN 1948, the Liverpool-based West African Review published a photograph of an African artist in his Hampstead studio in London. The artist is shown standing next to an easel with a framed painting of a West African market scene on it.
"Dressed in a white lab coat and a tie, he wields a rectangular palette in his left hand and a brush in his right hand..."
With this introductory remark, a new chapter in the documentation of the life and times of the premier African modernist, Ben Enwonwu, begins tomorrow in Lagos with the presentation of Ben Enwonwu, The Making Of An African Modernist.
Written by the art historian and associate professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, United States of America, Sylvester Okwunodo Ogbechie, the book has been described as an answer to years of neglect visited on the work of modern African artists and their search for forms of modernist expression by Western art historians.
But the new volume situates the late Enwonwu historically and interprets his works "in ways that surpass traditional discourse around the canon of modern art."
And in spite of the biases displayed towards artists of African origin including Enwonwu, the artist etched his name on the sand of times as the first African to earn the Membership of the British Empire (MBE) in 1954. He was also commissioned in 1956 to produce a bronze portrait of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth 11. As far back as 1937, Enwonwu's art was included in one of the first exhibitions of modern African art in London at Zwemmer Gallery.
From that year (1937) onward, international media feasted on Enwonwu's professional practice as Ebony magazine (Chicago) published a pictorial essay on his art in 1949 and declared him Africa's greatest artist; Time Magazine (New York) published a review of his exhibition in 1950; while his artworks were exhibited alongside those of prominent European modernists in the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris in 1946.
Till date, in spite of his exit in 1994, his art can be found in numerous private and public collections in Africa, Europe, the United States, India, and Japan.
No doubt, he has remained a reference point at the international art discourse worldwide.
But the biases exhibited by the Western art historians are mainly reflected in the categorization of the works of African artists as "either irrelevant to the discourse of modern art or as fundamentally subservient to the established narrative of Western European modernist practice."
With Enwonwu's sculptural masterpieces still dotting landscape across the world such as Anyanwu, mounted at the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York; The Drummer at the Nigerian Telecommunications headquarters in Lagos; Sango, the god of lightning and thunder at the Marina headquarters of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN); Knowledge at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos as well as Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe statue in Onitsha among numerous others, these biases could only be described as products of myopic thinking and blurred vision, contended Prof. Ogbechie.
The challenge of rescuing the waning history of African art in the world of art led to the writing of the book.
The author, at a briefing as a prelude to tomorrow's presentation insisted, Enwonwu was a good example of injustice done to the documentation of African artists. "It can never be too late to right the wrong," Ogbechie declared.
He recalled that the neglect of African artists manifested in the course of his writing the book, when he found it difficult to get research material to assist him in his efforts.
According to him, to accomplish the project, which he began in 1987, he had to travel to the United Kingdom and United States among three countries where he got the needed material.
In the U.K, he said, all he got was "a thin file containing one document about the artist's retrospective exhibition."
But he is relieved now. "Like child birth, I am done with the book, it consumed my entirety," he said.
Ogbechie recalled what he described as his first visit to Enwonwu's house in 1987 when he was an undergraduate at University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He said he chose Enwonwu as a subject for his project and was further inspired by a statement from the artist who declared that 'I am a sculptor'. For Ogbechie, "this statement set me out on this book project."
Tomorrow's launch at the Goethe Institut, Victoria Island, Lagos is in partnership with the Ben Enwonwu Foundation with Luciano Uzuegbu as its Senior Programme Officer. Uzuegbu said the book traces the illustrious career of Enwonwu, which spanned over five decades "and paved the way for post-colonial proliferation and increased visibility of African art."
Some of the dignitaries that will witness the birth of the book are Chief Philip Asiodu, Bashorun J.K. Randle, Erelu Abiola Dosunmu and Mr. Gbenga Oyebode, chairman, Access Bank Plc.
Enwonwu was born in Onitsha, Nigeria, in 1917. His earliest training as a sculptor was with his father. He studied under Kenneth Murray at the Government College, Umuahia. With a scholarship from Shell Company of West Africa, Enwonwu travelled to England. He studied at Goldsmith College, London, 1944; Ruskin College, Oxford, 1944-46; and Slade School of Fine Art, London, 1946-48.
Upon his return to Nigeria in 1948, he was appointed the first Nigerian art adviser to the colonial government. He was appointed Professor of Fine Arts, University of Ife 1971-76. He died in 1994.
