Odinigwe Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language of t ...
(14 July 1917 – 5 February 1994), better known as Ben Enwonwu, was a Nigerian
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...
and
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
. Arguably the most influential African artist of the 20th century, his pioneering career opened the way for the postcolonial proliferation and increased visibility of modern African art. He was one of the first African artists to win critical acclaim, having exhibited in august exhibition spaces in Europe and the United States and listed in international directories of contemporary art. Since 1950, Enwonwu was celebrated as "Africa's Greatest Artist" by the international media
and his fame was used to enlist support for Black Nationalists movement all over the world. The
Enwonwu crater on the planet
Mercury is named in his honour.
Biography
Early life
Ben Enwonwu was born a twin on 14 July 1917 into the noble family of Umueze-Aroli in
Onitsha
Onitsha ( or just ''Ọ̀nị̀chà'') is a city located on the eastern bank of the Niger River, in Anambra State, Nigeria. A metropolitan city, Onitsha is known for its river port and as an economic hub for commerce, industry, and education. ...
,
Nigeria
Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of G ...
. His father, Omenka Odigwe Emeka Enwonwu, was a
technician
A technician is a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant skill and technique, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles.
Specialisation
The term technician covers many different special ...
who worked with the
Royal Niger Company
The Royal Niger Company was a mercantile company chartered by the British government in the nineteenth century. It was formed in 1879 as the ''United African Company '' and renamed to ''National African Company'' in 1881 and to ''Royal Niger Co ...
. He was also a member of the Onitsha Council of Chiefs and a traditional
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
of repute, who created staffs of office, stools, decorative doors and religious images.
His mother, Chinyelugo Iyom Nweze, was a successful cloth merchant.
Upon his father's death in 1921, Enwonwu inherited his tools, going on to perfect the art of carving in the style of indigenous Igbo sculpture, begun earlier with his father, who first nurtured his precocious talent.
Education
Between 1921 and 1931, Enwonwu attended five primary schools: St. Joseph's Elementary School, Onitsha (1926–28); St, Theresa's Elementary School, Umuahia (1928–29); St. Mary's Primary School, Port Harcourt (1929–30); Holy TrinIbity Primary; and St. Mary's Primary School, both in Onitsha (1930–31). In 1933, Enwonwu attended St. Patrick's School,
Ibusa, and later enrolled at the
Government College, Ibadan
Government College Ibadan (founded 28 February 1929) is a boys' secondary school located on the hills of Apata Ganga in Ibadan, Nigeria.
History
The founding fathers of Government College Ibadan were Selwyn MacGregor Grier, Director of Education, ...
, completing his secondary education at
Government College Umuahia
Government College Umuahia, or GCU, is an independent secondary school for boys located on Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road in Umuahia, Nigeria.
Twenty years after the establishment of Kings College, the first government-owned high school, by the Britis ...
in 1937. At both colleges, he studied fine art under
Kenneth C. Murray. Murray was an education officer in charge of art education in the colonial civil service and later director of antiquities. During their time together, Enwonwu became Murray's assistant and was recognised as one of the most gifted and technically proficient students of the "Murray Group" (Ben C. Enwonwu, C. C. Ibeto, D.L. Nnachy, M. Teze and A. P. Umana). The period of study under Murray marked the beginning of Enwonwu's formal education in art.
In 1944, under a joint
Shell Petroleum
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New Y ...
Company and
British Council
The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...
scholarship, he attended the prestigious
Slade School of Fine Art
The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
, University College, London, and in 1945, the Ruskin School, Ashmolean, Oxford University, where the Slade had been relocated during World War II. In 1947, he received a first-class diploma in fine art from the Slade and registered for postgraduate work in anthropology (with a focus on West African ethnography) at the University of London. In 1948, Enwonwu completed his studies.
Nkiru Nzegwu
Nkiru Nzegwu (born March 22, 1954) is a Nigerian philosopher, painter, author, curator and art historian. She is Distinguished Professor for Research at State University of New York at Binghamton.
Among Dr. Nzegwu’s areas of expertise are Afri ...
states that the racist atmosphere he encountered during his stay in England sparked his interest in entering this programme. Anthropology offered a space for the scientific study of the races, their physical and mental characteristics, customs, and social relationships. In 1937, Murray exhibited Enwonwu's work at the Zwemmer Gallery in London
In 1969, he received an honorary doctorate degree from
Ahmadu Bello University
Ahmadu Bello University Zaria is a federal government research university in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria. ABU was founded on 4 October 1962, as the pioneer university in Northern Nigeria. It was founded and named after the Sardauna of Sokoto, Al ...
, Zaria.
Career
After working with Murray for many years, Enwonwu was hired as a teacher at the Government College of Umuahia. According to Sylvester Ogbechie, author of ''Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist'', Murray was displeased with the university's choice to provide Enwonwu with the same salary as the other seasoned teachers. This created a rift between both men. Eventually Murray left Government College and Enwonwu replaced him as art teacher.
He continued his work as an art teacher in other various schools, including mission school in
Calabar
Calabar (also referred to as Callabar, Calabari, Calbari and Kalabar) is the capital city of Cross River State, Nigeria. It was originally named Akwa Akpa, in the Efik language. The city is adjacent to the Calabar and Great Kwa rivers and cr ...
Province (1940–41), and
Edo College
Edo College is a secondary grammar school in Benin City, Nigeria, the oldest in the Mid-Western Region. It was established in February, 1937 and started as the Benin Middle School with forms, I, II and III. In April 1937, the school, with a total ...
,
Benin City
Benin City is the capital and largest city of Edo State, Nigeria. It is the fourth-largest city in Nigeria according to the 2006 census, after Lagos, Kano, and Ibadan, with a population estimate of about 3,500,000 as of 2022. It is situated a ...
(1941–43). He was art adviser to the Nigerian government from 1948.
During the years following 1950, he toured and lectured in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
, and executed many commissions as a freelance artist. In 1951, he met with the founding members of the Lagos auxiliary to the
Anti Slavery and Aborigines Right Society, which was at that time headed by
Candido Da Rocha
Chief Candido Joao Da Rocha ( 1860 – March 11, 1959) was a Nigerian businessman, landowner and creditor who owned Water House on Kakawa Street, Lagos Island, Lagos, and was the proprietor of the now defunct Bonanza Hotel in Lagos. He held the c ...
, and had
James Johnson,
Samuel Pearse, and
Sapara Williams as members. and became their official art illustrator. From 1949 to 1954, Enwonwu held many art exhibitions within
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...
,
Lagos
Lagos (Nigerian English: ; ) is the largest city in Nigeria and the List of cities in Africa by population, second most populous city in Africa, with a population of 15.4 million as of 2015 within the city proper. Lagos was the national ca ...
,
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city has ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
,
Washington D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, N ...
, and
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- most p ...
. In the course of her 1956 visit to Nigeria, Queen
Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
commissioned and sat for a portrait sculpture by Enwonwu. At the Royal Society of British Artists exhibition in London of 1957, he unveiled
the bronze sculpture.
In 1959, Enwonwu was appointed Supervisor in the Information Service Department office in Nigeria.
He was a fellow of
Lagos University (1966–68), cultural advisor to the Nigeria government (1968–71), and visiting artist at the Institute of African Studies at
Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...
,
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...
, in 1971.
[Chuks Iloegbunam, "Independent expressions: Ben Enwonwu", ''The Guardian'', 4 March 1994.] He was appointed the first professor of Fine Arts at the
University of Ife,
Ile-Ife, from 1971 to 1975. He was also art consultant to the International Secretariat,
Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos of 1977. The
President of Nigeria
The president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the head of state and head of government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the Nigeria ...
,
Shehu Shagari
Shehu Usman Aliyu Shagari (25 February 1925 – 28 December 2018), titled Turakin Sokoto from 1962, was the first democratically elected President of Nigeria, after the transfer of power by military head of state General Olusegun Obasanjo in ...
, presented a small sculpture of Enwonwu's ''Anywanu'', a representation of the Igbo earth goddess
Ani
Ani ( hy, Անի; grc-gre, Ἄνιον, ''Ánion''; la, Abnicum; tr, Ani) is a ruined medieval Armenian city now situated in Turkey's province of Kars, next to the closed border with Armenia.
Between 961 and 1045, it was the capital of the ...
, to Elizabeth II and
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from E ...
, on the occasion of his state visit to the United Kingdom in 1981.
Enwonwu executed portraits of Nigerians as private commissions, and illustrated
Amos Tutuola
Amos Tutuola (20 June 1920 – 8 June 1997) was a Nigerian writer who wrote books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales.
Early history
Amos Olatubosun Tutuola Odegbami was born on 20 June 1920, in Wasinmi, a village just a few miles outside ...
's 1958 novel ''The Brave African Huntress''. He maintained a studio in London and was a Fellow of the
Royal Anthropological Institute
The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI) is a long-established anthropological organisation, and Learned Society, with a global membership. Its remit includes all the component fields of anthropology, such as biolo ...
, London.
Impact on the modern art world
Ogbechie describes his art as "
he opening up ofthird space in art history whose nature and parameters are at variance with art history's exclusionary narratives of modernity and its inscription of the modern artist-subject as a white, Western European male".
Recognition of his bronze sculpture of the Queen proved that he, as an African modern artist, used his practice to develop a new kind of modern art whose ideals of representation and notions of artistic identity were different from conventional art-historical narrative of European modernist practice.
''
Tutu'', a series of three portraits of the Ife princess
Adetutu Ademiluyi ('Tutu'), were painted by Enwonwu in 1973 and have been missing since 1975. One of the three paintings was rediscovered in 2017 in a London flat.
It was sold for £1,205,000 in an auction held by
Bonhams
Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought tog ...
. The portrait of Tutu, one of the three made by the painter, is a Nigerian national icon and considered a reconciliation symbol between the government and Biafran separatists after the
civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policie ...
.
A painting by Enwonwu, titled "Owo Market" and showing a marketplace scene in the Nigerian city of
Owo
Owo is a local government area in Ondo state, Nigeria. Between 1400 and 1600 CE, it was the capital of a Yoruba city-state. The local government area has a population of 222,262 based on 2006 population census.
History
In their oral tra ...
, and dated 1949, was restored on the BBC programme ''
The Repair Shop
''The Repair Shop'' is a British daytime television show made by production company Ricochet (TV production company), Ricochet that aired on BBC Two for series 1 to 3 and on BBC One for series 4 onwards, in which heirloom, family heirlooms are an ...
'', broadcast on 7 August 2019. The painting's owner had known Enwonwu, and described him as a lovely man always with a flower in his lapel and some of his work can be found in the
Kakofoni Group Gallery.
Notable works
National Archives and Records Administration
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It i ...
">
"Dogari", 1949 - NARA - 558879.jpg , "Dogari", 1949
"Father and Son" - NARA - 558871.jpg , "Father and Son"
"Fulani Girl of Rupp", 1949 - NARA - 558878.jpg , "Fulani Girl of Rupp", 1949
"Head of Hausa", 1958 - NARA - 558876.jpg , "Head of Hausa", 1958
"Head of Yoruba Girl" - NARA - 558874.jpg , "Head of Yoruba Girl"
"Man with Banana Leaf" - NARA - 558872.jpg , "Man with Banana Leaf"
"Nkatamuo" - NARA - 558875.jpg , "Nkatamuo"
"Waterside Scene", 1950 - NARA - 558877.jpg , "Waterside Scene", 1950
*''Portrait of Chief Candido Joao Da Rocha'' (1951) which was exhibited during FESTAC LAGOS 1977
*''
.
in New York City.
Several smaller editions have been created.
(1961)
*''Sango'' (1964): the Yoruba god of lightning and thunder
*''Ogbanje'' which is currently exhibited a
(1967)
*''Christine'' (1967): Sold in 2019 for $1.4 million.
*''
'' (1973)
*''Risen Christ'' (1986): was displayed University of Ibadan but was torched as a result of a political-religious tensions
Enwonwu's work is displayed in the
.
.
: for academic and intellectual attainment in Nigeria
* 1958 – Commonwealth Certificate in London: for contributions to art by the Royal Institute of Art
* 1958 –
(MBE)
* 1971 – Officer of the National Order of the Republic in Senegal
* 1980 – National Order of Merit in Nigeria: for contributions to art in Nigeria
''93106'', Vol. 19, No. 11, 23 February 2009,