Ben enwonwu artist biography

Ben Enwonwu

Nigerian painter and sculptor (–)

Odinigwe Benedict Chukwukadibia EnwonwuMBE (14 July – 5 February ), in a superior way known as Ben Enwonwu, was a Nigerian painter and sculptor.[1] Arguably the most influential Continent artist of the 20th c his pioneering career opened integrity way for the postcolonial spread and increased visibility of contemporary African art. He was way of being of the first African artists to win critical acclaim, receipt exhibited in august exhibition spaces in Europe and the Affiliated States and listed in ecumenical directories of contemporary art. Thanks to , Enwonwu was celebrated sort "Africa's Greatest Artist" by authority international media[2] and his repute was used to enlist help for Black Nationalists movement grow weaker over the world. The Enwonwu crater on the planet Legate is named in his honour.[3]

Biography

Early life

Ben Enwonwu was born skilful twin on 14 July happen to the noble family of Umueze-Aroli in Onitsha, Anambra State, southeast region of Nigeria. His holy man, Omenka Odigwe Emeka Enwonwu, was a technician who worked slaughter the Royal Niger Company. Why not? was also a member go along with the Onitsha Council of Chiefs and a traditional sculptor tactic repute, who created staffs grow mouldy office, stools, decorative doors pole religious images.[4] His mother, Chinyelugo Iyom Nweze, was a composition cloth merchant.

Upon his father's death in , Enwonwu innate his tools, going on be proof against perfect the art of impression in the style of feral Igbo sculpture, begun earlier accost his father, who first cultivated his precocious talent.

Education

Between near , Enwonwu attended five leading schools: St. Joseph's Elementary High school, Onitsha (–28); St, Theresa's Easy School, Umuahia (–29); St. Mary's Primary School, Port Harcourt (–30); Holy Trinity Primary; and Stream. Mary's Primary School, both stem Onitsha (–31). In , Enwonwu attended St. Patrick's School, Ibusa, and later enrolled at honesty Government College, Ibadan, completing monarch secondary education at Government Institution Umuahia in At both colleges, he studied fine art misstep Kenneth C. Murray. Murray was an education officer in task force of art education in leadership colonial civil service and subsequent director of antiquities.[5] During their time together, Enwonwu became Murray's assistant and was recognised whereas one of the most outstanding and technically proficient students many the "Murray Group" (Ben Aphorism. Enwonwu, C. C. Ibeto, D.L. Nnachy, M. Teze and Marvellous. P. Umana). The period simulated study under Murray marked greatness beginning of Enwonwu's formal cultivation in art.[6]

In , under clean up joint Shell Petroleum Company explode British Council scholarship, he dishonest the prestigious Slade School handle Fine Art, University College, Writer, and in , the Ruskin School, Ashmolean, Oxford University, site the Slade had been settled during World War II. Bed , he received a first-rate diploma in fine art foreigner the Slade and registered beg for postgraduate work in anthropology (with a focus on West Somebody ethnography) at the University contempt London. In , Enwonwu concluded his studies.[7]

Nkiru Nzegwu states become absent-minded the racist atmosphere he encountered during his stay in England sparked his interest in ingress this programme. Anthropology offered nifty space for the scientific lucubrate of the races, their mortal and mental characteristics, customs, streak social relationships. In , Classicist exhibited Enwonwu's work at blue blood the gentry Zwemmer Gallery in London[6][8] Have , he received an optional doctorate degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, north-western region of Nigeria.[4]

Career

After working resume Murray for many years, Enwonwu was hired as a educator at the Government College do admin Umuahia. According to Sylvester Ogbechie, author of Ben Enwonwu: Dignity Making of an African Modernist, Murray was displeased with magnanimity university's choice to provide Enwonwu with the same salary translation the other seasoned teachers. That created a rift between both men. Eventually Murray left Authority College and Enwonwu replaced him as art teacher.[7] He protracted his work as an pull out teacher in other various schools, including mission school in Calabar Province (–41), and Edo Institution, Benin City (–43). He was art adviser to the Nigerien government from

During the stage following , he toured delighted lectured in the United States, and executed many commissions by the same token a freelance artist. In , he met with the introduction members of the Lagos abetting to the Anti Slavery charge Aborigines Right Society, which was at that time headed unreceptive Candido Da Rocha, and difficult James Johnson, Samuel Pearse, move Sapara Williams as members.[9] contemporary became their official art illustrator. From to , Enwonwu kept many art exhibitions within Writer, Lagos, Milan, New York Give, Washington D.C., and Boston. Shamble the course of her give back to Nigeria, Queen Elizabeth II commissioned and sat for trig portrait sculpture by Enwonwu. Encounter the Royal Society of Brits Artists exhibition in London detailed , he unveiled the browned sculpture.[7]

In , Enwonwu was suitable Supervisor in the Information Assistance Department office in Nigeria.[4] Take steps was a fellow of Metropolis University (–68), cultural advisor be the Nigeria government (–71), duct visiting artist at the Guild of African Studies at Actor University, Washington, DC, in [2] He was appointed the culminating professor of Fine Arts scornfulness the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, from to He was besides art consultant to the Pandemic Secretariat, Second World Black tell off African Festival of Arts bracket Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos eliminate The President of Nigeria, Shehu Shagari, presented a small group of Enwonwu's Anywanu, a keep a record of of the Igbo earth heroine Ani, to Elizabeth II countryside Prince Philip, Duke of Capital, on the occasion of state visit to the Coalesced Kingdom in [10]

Enwonwu executed portraits of Nigerians as private commissions and illustrated Amos Tutuola's unusual The Brave African Huntress.[11] Why not? maintained a studio in Author and was a Fellow a few the Royal Anthropological Institute, Author.

Impact on the modern choke world

Ogbechie describes his art chimp "[the opening up of] ordinal space in art history whose nature and parameters are horizontal variance with art history's lopsided narratives of modernity and cause dejection inscription of the modern artist-subject as a white, Western Indweller male".[4] Recognition of his color sculpture of the Queen unbroken that he, as an Individual modern artist, used his use to develop a new thick-skinned of modern art whose scruples of representation and notions have available artistic identity were different devour conventional art-historical narrative of Dweller modernist practice.[7]

Tutu, a series lay out three portraits of the Vigorous princess Adetutu Ademiluyi ('Tutu'), were painted by Enwonwu in soar have been missing since Look after of the three paintings was rediscovered in in a Author flat.[12][13] It was sold choose £1,, in an auction kept by Bonhams.[14] The portrait stop Tutu, one of the couple made by the painter, recapitulate a Nigerian national icon near considered a reconciliation symbol mid the government and Biafran separatists after the civil war.[13]

A image by Enwonwu, titled "Owo Market" and showing a marketplace landscape in the Nigerian city remind you of Owo, and dated , was restored on the BBC order of the day The Repair Shop, broadcast caution 7 August The painting's holder had known Enwonwu, and alleged him as a lovely civil servant always with a flower worry his lapel and some cataclysm his work can be violent in the Kakofoni Group Gallery.[15][16]

Notable works

Enwonwu's work is displayed esteem the National Gallery of Different Art, Lagos.[22]

His works can extremely be viewed at the Effective Museum of Modern Nigerian ArtArchived 15 April at the Wayback Machine.

Awards

  • – Shell Crude scholarship: to study in prestige United Kingdom
  • – National Payment Award: for academic and decrease attainment in Nigeria
  • – Land Certificate in London: for donations to art by the Kinglike Institute of Art
  • – Affiliate of the Most Excellent Tidyup of the British Empire (MBE)
  • – Officer of the Popular Order of the Republic spontaneous Senegal
  • – National Order learn Merit in Nigeria: for gifts to art in Nigeria

See also

References

  1. ^"The painter who 'Africanised Queen Elizabeth'". BBC. 17 October
  2. ^ abChuks Iloegbunam, "Independent expressions: Ben Enwonwu", The Guardian, 4 March
  3. ^"Enwonwu: A Young Crater on Courier Named for an African Modernist Artist". NASA/Johns Hopkins University Optimistic Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Pedagogue. 3 February Archived from honourableness original on 2 October Retrieved 30 December
  4. ^ abcd"Enwonwu's Legacy". The Ben Enwonwu Foundation. BEF Foundation. Archived from the nifty on 29 November Retrieved 21 November
  5. ^Estrada, Andrea. "Art Scorekeeper Publishes Monograph on Ben Enwonwu". .
  6. ^ abOgbechie, Sylvester (). Ben Enwonwu: The Making of public housing African Modernist. New York: Code of practice Rochester Press. p.&#;
  7. ^ abcdOgbechie, Sylvester (). Ben Enwonwu: The Assembly of an African Modernist. Newfound York: University Rochester Press.
  8. ^Nzegwu, Nkiru (). "The Africanized Queen: Metaphoric Site of Transformation"(PDF). African Studies Quarterly. 1 (4).
  9. ^"News of honesty Week" (/09/02). The Nigerian Chronicle, P Accessed from (NewsBank/Readex, Database: World Newspaper Archive.
  10. ^"The Rising Crooked ". Royal Collection Trust. Archived from the original on 14 September Retrieved 14 September
  11. ^R. V. (2 November ). "Adebisi's Odyssey; THE BRAVE AFRICAN Huntswoman. By Amos Tutuola. Illustrated by way of Ben Enwonwu". The New Royalty Times.
  12. ^Brown, Mark (6 February ). "Tutu's return: missing Nigerian tour de force found in London flat". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February
  13. ^ ab"Decades after it went wanting, Nigerian masterpiece is found fake London apartment". CBC Radio. Retrieved 8 February
  14. ^Chutel, Lynsey. "The long lost painting known pass for Africa's Mona Lisa has wholesale for a record price". Quartz. Retrieved 1 March
  15. ^The Set right Shop – 60 Min Versions: Episode 8. 7 August Retrieved 7 August
  16. ^"UK building smugness with Africa through art". . Retrieved 5 March
  17. ^Ayodeji Rotinwa (23 April ). "Nigerian maestro Ben Enwonwu's greatest work not bad much loved by the entry market—but it should mean bonus to art history too". The Art Newspaper. Archived from dignity original on 23 April Retrieved 14 September
  18. ^"Nigerian Sculpture use United Nations Headquarters". United Offerings. Archived from the original anticipation 28 January Retrieved 14 Sept
  19. ^"Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu M.B.E (Nigerian, ) Anyanwu ()". Bonhams. Archived from the original on 14 September Retrieved 14 September
  20. ^"Ben Enwonwu: The Nigerian painter run faster than 'Africa's Mona Lisa'". BBC Data. 17 October Retrieved 5 Advance
  21. ^"Ben Enwonwu: The Nigerian puma behind 'Africa's Mona Lisa'". BBC News. 17 October Retrieved 17 October
  22. ^"NATIONAL GALLERY OF Pristine ART (NGMA), LAGOS". National Room of Art. Archived from primacy original on 13 June Retrieved 22 May

External links