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\n \u201cWhere we would often associate modernism with European art history, there were in fact multiple contexts within which the language of modern art developed and evolved,\u201d said Osei Bonsu, a curator of International Art at the Tate Modern.\n <\/p>\n
\n Nigeria was a key hub for the development of modern African art, in part due to its colonial connections with Britain \u2014 several of the artists featured in the show had trained in London or other European cities before returning back to Nigeria, blending both European and indigenous techniques and forms within their work. As the country achieved independence from British rule, artists debated what new forms of nationhood, identity and art could look like. And while some techniques, such as uli \u2014 a traditional design practice indigenous to Igbo land in southeastern Nigeria, where women painted directly onto their bodies or created wall murals \u2014 may not have been viewed as modernist at the time, they incorporated modernist ideas such as improvisation and harmony through the use of positive and negative space, said Bonsu.\n <\/p>\n
\n One artist who is credited with pioneering Nigerian modernism is the sculptor and painter Ben Enwonwu. \u201cHis works were the cultural background to our growing up,\u201d said Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of the 2008 biography \u201cBen Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist\u201d. \u201cEnwonwu made it possible to think about the arts as a respectable profession. In terms of Africa, he was the first African artist to gain global recognition and global prestige.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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\n Born in 1917 to an elite family in Onitsha, in the southeastern region of Nigeria, Enwonwu earned a scholarship to train at the Slade School of Art in London. Contemporary critics placed him in the same \u2014 if not higher \u2014 calibre as European modern masters, while famed British sculptor Henry Moore saw Enwonwu as a prot\u00e9g\u00e9 and even bought one of his early works, said Ogbechie.\n <\/p>\n
\n There is a wider recognition that artists from Africa, from this time, have perhaps been sidelined in comparison to their western peers.\n <\/p>\n
\n Helene Love-Allotey, the head of Modern and Contemporary African Art at Bonhams\n <\/p>\n
\n In 1957, Enwonwu was commissioned to create a sculpture of Britain\u2019s Queen Elizabeth II<\/a>, which elevated his already-respected artistic profile and prestige throughout the countries under British colonial rule as well as those that had recently gained independence. Yet Enwonwu also connected his Igbo ethnic identity and heritage with his classical art training in other aspects of his work. He used traditional sculpture techniques and tools inherited from his father, and in his paintings portrayed Igbo masquerade culture \u2014 a traditional ritual where masks, costumes and performance personify ancestral spirits.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cHe foregrounded African cultural registers in his work,\u201d said Ogbechie. \u201cHe was very insistent on the fact that if Monet could paint church facades and hay bales and water lilies and be considered a modern artist, there was no reason why he couldn\u2019t paint masquerades and African market scenes and have them received in the same manner.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Another artist now receiving recognition further afield is the potter and ceramicist Ladi Kwali, whose portrait appears on the 20 Nigerian naira note. Born in the Gwari region of northern Nigeria, Kwali became the first female trainee at the Pottery Training Centre in Abuja in 1954, and is known for infusing her modern ceramics training with traditional influences.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019ve been very drawn to her way of making, and I think it\u2019s really interesting that she stuck to her own identity and maintained a certain way of doing things,\u201d said Helene Love-Allotey, the head of department and a specialist in Modern and Contemporary African Art at Bonhams, a private auction house in London. Love-Allotey pointed to Gwari traditions, such as Kwali\u2019s aunts teaching her techniques including handcoiling, and the recurring motifs of lizards and fish seen on her bowls and water vessels as examples of this blend within Kwali\u2019s work.\n <\/p>\n \n Kwali is also a focal point of the current exhibition \u201cBody Vessel Clay: Black Women, Ceramics & Contemporary Art<\/a>\u201d on show at the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York. Earlier this year in Paris, the Centre Pompidou\u2019s summer exhibition, titled \u201cParis Noir: Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance, 1950 \u2014 2000<\/a>,\u201d also explored the role, importance and influence of African artists in the Modernist movement.\n <\/p>\n \n Besides institutional recognition, African modern and contemporary artists have also gained greater commercial interest in recent years. In 2023, Kwali and her female peers from the Abuja Pottery Training Centre saw record-setting sales<\/a> when their work was auctioned at Bonhams, while in 2018, an Enwonwu painting, \u201cTutu,\u201d sold for $1.67 million. An auction<\/a> this week of Nigerian modernist work will also feature pieces by Enwonwu and Egonu. \u201cThere is a wider recognition that artists from the continent, from this time, have perhaps been sidelined in comparison to their western peers,\u201d said Love-Allotey, who also created and runs the Instagram account African Art History<\/a>, which celebrates such artists.\n <\/p>\n \n The growing appetite from both private collectors and public audiences builds on years of scholarship by academics such as Ogbechie, and curator Bonsu hopes that this mainstream interest alongside the exhibition will prompt visitors to ask questions and reflect on their own cultural heritage. \u201cWe don\u2019t always center African stories when we talk about world history,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is an opportunity to think about the immense contributions that African artists have made towards art and art history, but also to society at large.\u201d\n <\/p>\n ![\"Enwonwu's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1-ben-enwonwu-the-dancer-agbogho-mmuo-maiden-spirit-mask-1962-ben-enwonwu-foundation-courtesy-ben-ur.jpeg\")
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