₦airaland Forum

rummmy:
He didn't make his own sculpture.
Who did he mentor.,?

joshkke:
Actually a lot, I read a news story about him having numerous apprentices. I was wondering myself where they all are.

Many associate the name Bruce Onobrakpeya with Prof Ben Enwonwu, another master artist. Are both of you contemporaries?

When I left Zaria, I served apprenticeship under him in Lagos. I was with him. So he was ahead of us all. When I was at Zaria, he actually came to lecture us, talk to the art department, people in the university and so on. So he was ahead of us and by the time we came out, Ben had already made big name. He had printed and sculpted the Queen of England and he had attended international conferences and had made artworks for the museums and other places. So Ben had already been fully established. Ben is not our contemporary. Ben was far ahead of us.

"I will not accept an inferior position in the art world. Nor have my art called African because I have not correctly and properly given expression to my reality. I have consistently fought against that kind of philosophy because it is bogus.

European artists like Picasso, Braque and Vlaminck were influenced by African art. Everybody sees that and is not opposed to it. But when they see African artists who are influenced by their European training and technique, they expect that African to stick to their traditional forms even if he bends down to copying them. I do not copy traditional art. I like what I see in the works of people like Giacometti but I do not copy them. I knew Giacometti personally in England, you know. I knew he was influenced by African sculptures. But I would not be influenced by Giacometti, because he was influenced by my ancestors”.

“Art is not static, like culture. Art changes its form with the times. It is setting the clock back to expect that the art form of Africa today must resemble that of yesterday otherwise the former will not reflect the African image. African art has always, even long before western influence, continued to evolve through change and adaptation to new circumstances. And in like manner, the African view of art has followed the trend of cultural change up to the modern times”.

Akhaz024:
Awesome, but why is any rail line not passing Ikorodu axis.

Ishilove:
Since Ben Enwonwu is deceased, I am assuming the money goes to his family?

bigpicture001:
He did all this things in the 60's...? That's surprising to know

joseph1832:
Oh. I was thinking this particular girl was a one time Miss Nigeria?

joseph1832:
which of the Joy soap advert?

Ishilove:
Is there a foundation or trust fund where the monies realised from the sales go to?

Rediscovering the Art of Ben Enwonwu

Decades after his death, one of Africa’s most famous artists is gaining renewed attention, and his pieces are bringing big prices.

By Farah Nayeri
Published Sept. 24, 2019

In 1971, an American hair stylist living in Lagos posed for a portrait by the artist Ben Enwonwu of Nigeria. Christine Elizabeth Davis (who was the wife of a British missionary) wore an elegant Nigerian gele, or head wrap, and sat so still that the painting was completed in a week. The finished work, “Christine,” then moved with the Davis family to Texas in 1978.

Four decades later, after her death, her stepson — who was a little boy when the portrait was done and always lived with it — reached out to Sotheby’s via its online-valuation platform to see what “Christine” might be worth. The answer was, quite a lot.

Mr. Enwonwu’s market prices had recently soared. His 1974 portrait of a Yoruba princess, “Tutu,” sold for 1.2 million pounds ($1.49 million) in a February 2018 auction at Bonhams, four times its high estimate, setting a record for the artist.

So when Sotheby’s holds its sale of modern and contemporary African art on Oct. 15, “Christine” will go on the auction block for an estimated £100,000 to £150,000 — a price that Sotheby’s describes as deliberately conservative to maximize bidding.

The portrait is “a personal heirloom, so not such an easy decision to make,” Hannah O’Leary, Sotheby’s head of modern and contemporary African art, said of the stepson’s wish to part with the painting. “But the time is great to sell it.”

“If you told me that my painting of my grandmother was worth six figures, I would feel a little less sentimental about it,” she said. For most people, “it’s a life-changing amount of money.”

Ms. O’Leary said that because the international market for Nigerian and African art was growing, Mr. Enwonwu was being rediscovered as an artist, and his pieces were being spotted in private collections around the world.

“These works are coming out of the woodwork,” she said.
Mr. Enwonwu (who died in 1994 at 77) was, for much of his life, one of Africa’s most famous artists. He was originally trained as a sculptor.

He produced a sculpture of Queen Elizabeth II for which the queen sat a dozen times, including at Buckingham Palace; the sculpture was completed in 1957. In 1966, he presented a tall bronze sculpture of a female figure, “Anyanwu,” to the United Nations in New York, where it is still on display.

While Mr. Enwonwu’s stature in Nigeria remains undiminished, he has faded out of the international spotlight in the last couple of decades, Ms. O’Leary said. The “Tutu” auction record is bringing him renewed attention.

“I’m very happy that my father is getting his due, but there’s still a long way to go,” said the artist’s son Oliver Enwonwu, a 44-year-old figurative painter and gallerist based in Lagos. He noted that contemporaries from other parts of Africa who were far less recognized in their lifetime were worth more on the international art market today.

“Christine,” the artist’s son noted, was “much more than the portrait of a woman.” It was an important precursor to pieces such as “Tutu,” and painted in the wake of the Nigerian civil war, a time of conflict, bloodshed and tribal tension, he said.

Through its serene depiction of beauty and femininity, it symbolized a certain “national consciousness,” and was destined to “bring our peoples together,” Mr. Enwonwu added. It was part of a series of works in which the artist “promotes all things black and all things beautiful.”

When Oliver was young, growing up as the son of a celebrated artist was rewarding and enriching. Yet it could also be intimidating.

His father was “a very, very hard-working man” who “liked absolute quiet,” his son recalled. The children “always scampered away” to avoid disturbing him, to show that they were keeping busy, too.

“He didn’t like you just lying around,” Mr. Enwonwu said. “He always believed that you have to be reading or doing something, not just hanging out.”

It was even more challenging for the young boy to follow in his father’s footsteps, and to prove that he had what it takes to be an artist in his own right.

“He didn’t believe I could draw,” the son said. “He asked me to repeat a drawing in front of him, because he thought I was tracing. He then told my mom: ‘Oliver is drawing with mathematical precision.’ From that day, he was more accepting of my development as an artist.”

The father then started lending a hand with his son’s school art assignments, helping him paint foregrounds or backgrounds, or the sky. One important lesson, Oliver Enwonwu said, was that “sometimes, when working, you must learn where to stop, because if you add a few more touches, you might spoil the work and disrupt the energy.”

As a gallerist promoting Nigerian and African art today, Mr. Enwonwu said, he has high hopes for the “Christine” auction at Sotheby’s.

“I’ll be very happy if it eclipses ‘Tutu,’” he said. “It’s a beacon of hope for a Nigerian artist who has a practice: He can work and earn good money for his work.”

He added, “It makes my work as a promoter of art in Nigeria much easier.”

2nd Rediscovered Version of Ben Enwonwu’s “Tutu” Painting Auctions for £320,750


Published on October 5, 2018


The second rediscovered version of Ben Enwonwu‘s famous painting “Tutu” on Thursday, sold for an impressive £320,750 at Bonhams‘ Africa Now sale.

Nine of Enwonwu’s paintings made the top 10 slot for the 121-lot sale which achieved £1,802,625.

Tutu is a 1974 painting of Princess Adetutu Ademiluyi, an Ife royalty.

The first version, which was discovered at a London home after going missing for decades, was auctioned for £1.2 million in February this year.

Enwonwu is said to have made three versions of the iconic painting.

Ben Enwonwu’s Painting Sold For £1.1m After Google Search


A painting by the Nigerian artist responsible for the ‘African Mona Lisa’ sold at auction in London on Tuesday for £1.1m after the family who owned it googled the signature and realised its importance.

‘Christine,’ by 20th century master of African modernism Ben Enwonwu, had been in the sitter’s family home ever since it was painted in Lagos in 1971.

“The family were unaware of the significance of the painting or the importance of the artist, until a chance googling of the signature led them to Sotheby’s free Online Estimate Platform,” said the London auction house.

The painting fetched over seven times the pre-auction estimate, finally going under the hammer for £1.1m (1.3 million euros, $1.4m).
The work precedes the artist’s 1974 painting of Ife royal princess Adetutu ‘Tutu’ Ademiluyi, which recently turned up in a London flat after not being seen in decades.

The portrait is a national icon in Nigeria, with Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri telling AFP that it was thought of as “the African Mona Lisa.”

Enwonwu, who died in 1994, is considered the father of Nigerian modernism.

He made three paintings of ‘Tutu,’ the locations of all of which had been a mystery until the recent discovery.

The works became symbols of peace following the clash of ethnic groups in the Nigerian-Biafran conflict of the late 1960s.

naptu2:
Ben Enwonwu's "African Dancers" Sold To Bidder At Lagos Auction Event.

Bonhams auction house sold several expensive pieces of African art yesterday in London and the star of the show was Tutu, a painting by Professor Ben Enwonwu.

However, Bonhams also had an event at the Wheatbaker Hotel, 4 Onitolo Road, Ikoyi in Lagos where guests watched a live stream of the event and could also bid for items that were on sale. Several of the items, including "African Dancers" by Professor Enwonwu, were bought by guests in Lagos.


https://mobile.twitter.com/Osisiye/status/968897614942007296

naptu2:
Legendary Nigerian artist, Professor Ben Enwonwu’s painting of an Ile-Ife princess, Adetutu Ademiluyi, who he met while he was a lecturer at University of Ife has been sold at auction for  £1,205,000.

Professor Enwonwu made the painting of the Ife princess in 1973 and 1974, but the painting went missing for many years until it was recently found in a London flat.


https://mobile.twitter.com/bonhams1793/status/968914310541004803