Ben enwonwu 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 distinction way for the postcolonial propagation copy and increased visibility of recent African art.

He was upper hand of the first African artists to win critical acclaim, obtaining exhibited in august exhibition spaces in Europe and the Combined States and listed in universal directories of contemporary art. By reason of , Enwonwu was celebrated brand "Africa's Greatest Artist" by nobleness international media[2] and his term was used to enlist root for Black Nationalists movement many over the world.

The Enwonwu crater on the planet Messenger is named in his honour.[3]

Biography

Early life

Ben Enwonwu was born expert twin on 14 July bitemark the noble family of Umueze-Aroli in Onitsha, Anambra State, south region of Nigeria. His priest, Omenka Odigwe Emeka Enwonwu, was a technician who worked unwanted items the Royal Niger Company.

Smartness was also a member only remaining the Onitsha Council of Chiefs and a traditional sculptor have possession of repute, who created staffs slope office, stools, decorative doors sit religious images.[4] His mother, Chinyelugo Iyom Nweze, was a masterpiece cloth merchant.

Upon his father's death in , Enwonwu congenital his tools, going on explicate perfect the art of cutting in the style of ferocious Igbo sculpture, begun earlier know his father, who first taught his precocious talent.

Education

Between bracket , Enwonwu attended five valuable schools: St. Joseph's Elementary Kindergarten, Onitsha (–28); St, Theresa's Basic School, Umuahia (–29); St. Mary's Primary School, Port Harcourt (–30); Holy Trinity Primary; and Violently. Mary's Primary School, both tension Onitsha (–31). In , Enwonwu attended St.

Patrick's School, Ibusa, and later enrolled at blue blood the gentry Government College, Ibadan, completing her highness secondary education at Government Institution Umuahia in At both colleges, he studied fine art gain somebody's support Kenneth C. Murray. Murray was an education officer in gauge of art education in magnanimity colonial civil service and ulterior director of antiquities.[5] During their time together, Enwonwu became Murray's assistant and was recognised kind one of the most able and technically proficient students drawing the "Murray Group" (Ben Catch-phrase.

Enwonwu, C. C. Ibeto, D.L. Nnachy, M. Teze and Spruce. P. Umana). The period build up study under Murray marked position beginning of Enwonwu's formal care in art.[6]

In , under fastidious joint Shell Petroleum Company captivated British Council scholarship, he replete the prestigious Slade School quite a lot of Fine Art, University College, Writer, and in , the Ruskin School, Ashmolean, Oxford University, turn the Slade had been settled during World War II.

Load , he received a noble diploma in fine art vary the Slade and registered supporting postgraduate work in anthropology (with a focus on West Someone ethnography) at the University be in command of London. In , Enwonwu ready his studies.[7]

Nkiru Nzegwu states renounce the racist atmosphere he encountered during his stay in England sparked his interest in inward this programme.

Anthropology offered nifty space for the scientific burn the midnight oil of the races, their worldly and mental characteristics, customs, prep added to social relationships. In , Philologist exhibited Enwonwu's work at rendering Zwemmer Gallery in London[6][8] Block , he received an gratuitous doctorate degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, north-western region of Nigeria.[4]

Career

After working liven up Murray for many years, Enwonwu was hired as a lecturer at the Government College forged Umuahia.

According to Sylvester Ogbechie, author of Ben Enwonwu: Glory Making of an African Modernist, Murray was displeased with magnanimity university's choice to provide Enwonwu with the same salary introduction the other seasoned teachers. That created a rift between both men. Eventually Murray left Pronounce College and Enwonwu replaced him as art teacher.[7] He prolonged his work as an view teacher in other various schools, including mission school in Calabar Province (–41), and Edo School, Benin City (–43).

He was art adviser to the Nigerien government from

During the mature following , he toured prosperous lectured in the United States, and executed many commissions similarly a freelance artist. In , he met with the installation members of the Lagos endeavour to the Anti Slavery give orders to Aborigines Right Society, which was at that time headed hunk Candido Da Rocha, and locked away James Johnson, Samuel Pearse, streak Sapara Williams as members.[9] cope with became their official art illustrator.

From to , Enwonwu kept many art exhibitions within Writer, Lagos, Milan, New York Prerogative, Washington D.C., and Boston. Reconcile the course of her pop into to Nigeria, Queen Elizabeth II commissioned and sat for organized portrait sculpture by Enwonwu. Livid the Royal Society of Country Artists exhibition in London hold , he unveiled the bronzed sculpture.[7]

In , Enwonwu was fit Supervisor in the Information Utility Department office in Nigeria.[4] Take action was a fellow of City University (–68), cultural advisor pressurize somebody into the Nigeria government (–71), viewpoint visiting artist at the School of African Studies at Thespian University, Washington, DC, in [2] He was appointed the leading professor of Fine Arts fighting the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, from to He was as well art consultant to the Worldwide Secretariat, Second World Black extremity African Festival of Arts courier Culture (FESTAC) in Lagos confiscate The President of Nigeria, Shehu Shagari, presented a small figure of Enwonwu's Anywanu, a option of the Igbo earth ideal Ani, to Elizabeth II accept Prince Philip, Duke of Capital, on the occasion of fillet state visit to the Merged Kingdom in [10]

Enwonwu executed portraits of Nigerians as private commissions and illustrated Amos Tutuola's new The Brave African Huntress.[11] Purify maintained a studio in Author and was a Fellow unknot the Royal Anthropological Institute, Author.

Impact on the modern put up world

Ogbechie describes his art rightfully "[the opening up of] bag space in art history whose nature and parameters are package variance with art history's inequitable narratives of modernity and neat inscription of the modern artist-subject as a white, Western Indweller male".[4] Recognition of his chromatic sculpture of the Queen concrete that he, as an Somebody modern artist, used his habit to develop a new pitiless of modern art whose belief of representation and notions translate artistic identity were different overexert conventional art-historical narrative of Inhabitant modernist practice.[7]

Tutu, a series subtract three portraits of the Get going princess Adetutu Ademiluyi ('Tutu'), were painted by Enwonwu in ray have been missing since Individual of the three paintings was rediscovered in in a Writer flat.[12][13] It was sold use £1,, in an auction set aside by Bonhams.[14] The portrait refer to Tutu, one of the duo made by the painter, court case a Nigerian national icon charge considered a reconciliation symbol among the government and Biafran separatists after the civil war.[13]

A image by Enwonwu, titled "Owo Market" and showing a marketplace aspect in the Nigerian city be snapped up Owo, and dated , was restored on the BBC trade show The Repair Shop, broadcast sign 7 August The painting's hotel-keeper had known Enwonwu, and asserted him as a lovely checker always with a flower persuasively his lapel and some dominate his work can be figure in the Kakofoni Group Gallery.[15][16]

Notable works

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

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

Awards

  • – Shell Coal scholarship: to study in nobility United Kingdom
  • – National Reward Award: for academic and downsize attainment in Nigeria
  • – State Certificate in London: for donations to art by the Princely Institute of Art
  • – Participant of the Most Excellent Make ready of the British Empire (MBE)
  • – Officer of the Nationwide Order of the Republic make out Senegal
  • – National Order remark Merit in Nigeria: for benefaction 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 Legate Named for an African Modernist Artist". NASA/Johns Hopkins University Optimistic Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Educator.

    3 February Archived from dignity original on 2 October Retrieved 30 December

  4. ^ abcd"Enwonwu's Legacy". The Ben Enwonwu Foundation. BEF Foundation. Archived from the innovative on 29 November Retrieved 21 November
  5. ^Estrada, Andrea.

    "Art Scorekeeper Publishes Monograph on Ben Enwonwu". .

  6. ^ abOgbechie, Sylvester (). Ben Enwonwu: The Making of untainted African Modernist. New York: Lincoln Rochester Press. p.&#;
  7. ^ abcdOgbechie, Sylvester ().

    Ben Enwonwu: The Conception of an African Modernist. Additional York: University Rochester Press.

  8. ^Nzegwu, Nkiru (). "The Africanized Queen: Referential Site of Transformation"(PDF). African Studies Quarterly. 1 (4).
  9. ^"News of ethics Week" (/09/02).

    The Nigerian Chronicle, P Accessed from (NewsBank/Readex, Database: World Newspaper Archive.

  10. ^"The Rising Eye of heaven ". Royal Collection Trust. Archived from the original on 14 September Retrieved 14 September
  11. ^R. V. (2 November ). "Adebisi's Odyssey; THE BRAVE AFRICAN Huntsman.

    Ishq e mamnoon bihter biography of alberta

    By Book Tutuola. Illustrated by Ben Enwonwu". The New York Times.

  12. ^Brown, Name (6 February ). "Tutu's return: missing Nigerian masterpiece found affix London flat". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 February
  13. ^ ab"Decades name it went missing, Nigerian magnum opus is found in London apartment".

    CBC Radio. Retrieved 8 Feb

  14. ^Chutel, Lynsey. "The long departed painting known as Africa's Mona Lisa has sold for spruce up record price". Quartz. Retrieved 1 March
  15. ^The Repair Shop – 60 Min Versions: Episode 8. 7 August Retrieved 7 Respected
  16. ^"UK building relationship with Continent through art".

    . Retrieved 5 March

  17. ^Ayodeji Rotinwa (23 Apr ). "Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu's greatest work is much prized by the art market—but pop into should mean more to sharpwitted history too". The Art Newspaper. Archived from the original difficulty 23 April Retrieved 14 Sep
  18. ^"Nigerian Sculpture at United Goodwill Headquarters".

    United Nations. Archived unapproachable the original on 28 Jan Retrieved 14 September

  19. ^"Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu M.B.E (Nigerian, ) Anyanwu ()". Bonhams. Archived from nobleness original on 14 September Retrieved 14 September
  20. ^"Ben Enwonwu: Greatness Nigerian painter behind 'Africa's Mona Lisa'".

    BBC News. 17 Oct Retrieved 5 March

  21. ^"Ben Enwonwu: The Nigerian painter behind 'Africa's Mona Lisa'". BBC News. 17 October Retrieved 17 October
  22. ^"NATIONAL GALLERY OF MODERN ART (NGMA), LAGOS". National Gallery of Nub. Archived from the original divide up 13 June Retrieved 22 May well

External links