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This paper examines a few paintings created by Kolade Oshinowo, a famous Yoruba artist belonging to the contemporary Nigerian textile art. It highlights and explains the thematic foci of its form, style and media as used by Oshinowo in his fabric paintings in Nigerian art scenes. Data for this study were obtained using the paintings and works of Kolade Oshinowo collected from exhibition catalogues, private individuals, and museums, in order to explain its style, form, subject matter and media used in painting. Kolade Oshinowo's painting in Nigeria represents the socio-cultural activities of the Yoruba culture and traditions. His painting exhibits the beauty of Yoruba textile motifs and patterns in social engagements of the contemporary Yoruba society. He uses mixed media to represent his ideas about the Yoruba people of Southwest Nigeria. The study established that Kolade Oshinowo's practice of painting in Nigerian art traditions is a reflection of his orientation of the life style and the socio-cultural behaviour of the Yoruba people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The arguably retrogressive development of infrastructures, socio-political systems and technology in most African states casts a shadow of doubt on Africa's claim to modernity and by extension, postmodernity. Within the context of the arts, the argument of this paper is premised on two questions: Why do some Nigerian artists claim to be postmodern? What is the viability of such a claim, in a country that, one is wondering whether it is even a modern society? To proffer answers to these questions, the paper enunciates a historical overview of contemporary African art and artists vis-à-vis the generalized concept of post-modernity, from the subjective view that its conceptualization and understanding, have a direct influence on contemporary artistic practice and expression. The paper then interrogates certain arts, within the context of their postmodern trend. The paper's conceptual framework is premised on Peroziosi's (2009) postulation that artworks are reflective of their original time, place, and production circumstances. The authors conclude that contemporary artists' responses to and their manifestation of postmodernist trends are such that can be categorised into three: Those who aspire faithfully to postmodernist principles; those who are inspired by postmodernism but want to progress their society by socio-political and economic reflections, criticism and advocacies as well as those who ordinarily would not have been artists perhaps, if not for the freedom provided by postmodernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is a review of art historian Chika Okeke-Agulu's Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria (Duke University Press, 2015). The book offers a chronicle of artistic theories, practices, and institutions during Nigeria's independence years (195767) amid the historical frames of Third World liberation, African decolonization, and Cold War realpolitik. The essay explores in particular how Postcolonial Modernism revisits and explores the thematic of "national culture" - the concept presented by Frantz Fanon in 1959, with long-lasting impact on theories of postcolonial arts - in the (decentralized) Nigerian art world, with a focus on the synthetic studio practices of members of the Zaria Art Society. Fanon's "two-fold becoming" model of national culture, which implies catalyzing links to international liberation movements, impacts not only Okeke-Agulu's narrative of a generational opposition to the preceding cultural paradigms of Negritude, but also - the essay argues - the writing of global modernist history at-large.

While the capacity of Nigerian art forms to promote national unity has been emphasised and acknowledged by scholars and critics, the part that The National Theatre of Nigeria specifically can play in this process has not received appropriate scholarly attention. Apart from newspaper articles, there is very little and no detailed study about the crucial role of The Nigerian National Theatre as space and place in promoting national unity. Hence, it is this gap in the knowledge production about the National Theatre that this study seeks to fill. The study is divided into eight (8) sections. The first section provides an overview of what the study is all about as well as the conversation into which it enters. The second section is devoted to the conceptualisation of the fundamental terminologies of the study. The study, for example, differentiates and at the same time establishes a confluence between the National Theatre as a structure, place, and space on one hand; and the National theatre as the performative acts of a nation on stage with an audience on the other. The third section, offers a brief explication of what Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space is all about and its relevance to this critical intervention. The fourth section is a sort of background to the fundamental argument of the study; it underscores the urgent need for/of a collective identity in the face of national disintegration. The fifth section of the study argues that the vision behind the setting-up or establishment of the National Theatre as space and place. Art as a performative gesture needs a space from which it could speak; and The Nigerian National Theatre as a structure is such a space. Conversely, space in isolation has no meaning without what inhabits or occupies it. It is, however, against the backdrop of this established vision as enunciated in section five that the sixth section entitled “The Role of the National Theatre in Nigeria’s Collective Identity” goes on to revisit in detail Henri Lefebvre’s theory of space to highlight “what has been” and “what should be” the role of The National Theatre. The seventh section makes some recommendations, and the eighth and final section is the “Conclusion,” which recaps and hammers on the arguments/findings of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a vibrant society, people tend to promote their cultural identities while at the same time spontaneous towards adaptation of other cultures. This study critically examines purposively selected works of printmaking artists that reflect the dynamism of culture in contemporary Nigerian art. The study relies on field investigation which includes visual media sources, as well as interviews with the selected printmaking artists. Data were also collected from catalogues of art exhibitions, textbooks, journal articles, as well as Internet sources. Data analysed through the descriptive approach were used to contextualise and provide more information on the printmakers and how their works intersect culture. The results of this study reveal a fusion and a continuum of contemporary with traditional African culture in which several strands of indigenous, international and modernistic elements are rearranged into pictorial composition in the works of the printmaking artists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uli is the body and wall painting tradition of the Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria. It was popular and common across Igbo villages until recently. The decline of uli like many other such cultural resources results from nescience and devaluation of autochthonous cultural expressions that do not measure up to prescribed Western ideas of art in the postcolonial experience. As part of efforts to save uli from possible extinction, artists of Nsukka School have researched the uli creative idiom and also appropriated it in their work. However, this appropriation, while trying to prolong the tradition, has also subtly added to the shadow of primitivism cast on the work of uli classical women painters in scholarship as the two paradigms have existed along the lines of the traditional–contemporary binary championed by Western scholars of African art in the early 1990s and beyond. This paper studies the uli revivalist painting sessions organized by Obiora Udechukwu and Krydz Ikwuemesi in 2003 and 2004 and uses the process and outcome of the paintings to argue that the women are not primitives, but classicists, if classicism is to be seen as a multi-versal experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information related to the works of African painter Moyo Ogundipe. It mentions that art education program at the University of Ife provided an ideal complement to his secondary school art education at Christ’s School; and collection of ancient Yoruba art in the National Museum in Ile-Ife. It also mentions that discursive environment of the early postcolonial era provided the context for Ogundipe’s artistic engagement; and Structural Adjustment Program reforms introduced in the middle of 1980 has failed to revive a stagnant economy and made daily life in Nigeria a constant struggle. It examines the Ogundipe’s Paintings including "Soliloquy: Life’s Fragile Fictions," and "a modern African dimension to painting".

The article discusses about the work of artist Josephine Ifueko Osayimwese Omigie in the history of the Zaria Art Society and Postcolonial Modernism in Nigeria. It mentions that the Zaria Art Society carries a lot of weight in Africanist art history circles with the name of a club founded by students at the first Western style formal art program in Nigeria; and understand the Zaria Art Society as the product of a new system of Western art education in Nigeria. It also focuses on consideration of the art and life of pioneering woman artist as well as of the role of women in modern Nigerian art.

The article offers information on Yoruba female twin figure sculptures which were produced in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Topics discussed include the artistic style of the figure sculptures; a carver named Eshubiyi, who set up his workshop in Abeokuta in 1863, where the sculptures were created; and the representation of the coiffures in sculptures by the carver. Also mentioned are the criticism of the hands in the figure, claimed to be unnaturally large; and artist Joshua Adelakun, who tried to make a copy of the piece.

The vibrancy of contemporary art in Nigeria is determined by the great output from both indigenous Nigerian-based artists and others, from the diaspora. However, scholarly emphasis has been paid to the artistic trajectory of home-based artists. An increasing influx of artists in the diaspora have returned to Nigeria to engage in art projects that bring new dimensions to the arts. In addition to this category of artists is a growing crop of United States-based artists who receive funding from US institutions and the US government. This article focuses on the works of two artists-an American-bred Nigerian artist, Wura-Natasha Ogunji, and an African American, California-based artist, Brett Cook-with emphasis on the various dimensions of their art in engaging with people within a mostly unfamiliar environment and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Nigerian modernist artist Benedict Chukadibia Enwonwu (1917-1994), more commonly known as Ben Enwonwu, focusing particularly on the author's researching of his personal archives held by the Ben Enwonwu Foundation at his former home and studio in Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria. Topics include his dates of birth and death, Western reception of his art and issues of Eurocentrism, and his approach to painting which encompassed both Igbo iconography and European styles, and his writings on art..

During the 2nd Black World and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977, a lot of novel, creative and artistic events took place in Lagos. One of these was the construction of a monument, the National Arts Theatre, which also accommodated the National Gallery of Art. Invariably, the presence of the Gallery made the Arts Theatre management allocate the premises of the Theatre to some notable Nigerian artists for use as Artists in Residence. The premises eventually, by 1980, became an institutional and inspirational workshop for budding Nigerian artists. The activities of the artists were so professionally accepted that it was named the National Studios of Art. However, at the time the Studio had become the centre of sound informal art training, it was given a relocation order which caused serious controversy between the Gallery and the artists. The artists eventually accepted the relocation order, and this, necessarily, led to changing the name to the Universal Studios of Art (USA). As the professional artists became globally known, the USA also became a tourist centre for both local and foreign visitors and artists. Till today, the activities of the USA continue to attract national and international attention. Very as unfortunately, no scholarly study of the Universal Studios of Art has been carried out, despite its outstanding professional qualities.. For many years, the artists have developed valuable art forms and art styles that have contributed to the advancement of modern Nigerian art. It is the objective of this article, therefore, to document the artists of the Universal Studios of Art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on African masks of eastern Nigeria and their social importance. Topics discussed include the aesthetics of the masks made in eastern Nigeria and their use in trade and war; the masquerade societies known as Ukwa, Nnabo, and Agaba, and an essay on them by Jordan Fenton; and the use of masks for political and economic gain as well as spiritual and social empowerment. Also mentioned is the role of gender as a factor in Cross River masquerades, and the essay written on it by Amanda Carlson.

The article provides information on the Efik Nnabo Society masquerades of Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.It is said that Nnabo masquerade characters act aggressively to strike terror onto enemies and criminals. Rituals are conducted before any Nnabo performance including singing of sacred songs to empower medicines that protect performers and pouring of libation onto the earth to invite spirits of departed members and ancestors. The characters represented by Nnabo masquerades include Edua Nnabo or dog chief, Nsibdi Nnabo or security force, Mkporo or scavenger who displays actual human skulls, Idem Nnabo who represent the spirit, Ayabom Nnabo who represents a kind of visual assault meant to terrorize enemies, and Eka Nnabo who embodies calmness and sanity, life and rebirth.

The article investigates ancient copper alloy objects from the Lower Niger region in Nigeria, particularly bell heads, that demonstrate creativity and aesthetic power and draws ideas about the ritual environment associated with the Edo-Benin cult of Osun in Benin City surrounding these works of art. It is said that bells were a component of medicines and command attention, protect individuals and lineages, stress movement and announce a presence of an approaching bearer of power or possible danger. The head is the representation of character and destiny, while the eye or face is the point of mediation between deity and supplicant, and between fate and character. Bell heads representing Osun show reptilian and facial features and Ododua masks also link the bell heads to Osun traditions.

Nature and the built environment present diverse themes and contexts for artistic expression, and these have been the concern of artists throughout the ages, especially painters. This paper therefore examines the implantation of landscape painting as an artistic genre and a visual document of socio-economic and urban development in Nigeria, using as the basis Lagos (the orb of Nigeria's artistic practice and art marketing). Through literature, interviews and purposively selected works, the paper discusses some historical, political and socio-economic factors responsible for the growth of landscape painting in Lagos, Nigeria. The art of landscape painting in Lagos State, as revealed by the paper, dates back to the 1920s in Nigeria; and while the works of pioneer landscape painters focused on naturalistic realism, their contemporary counterparts explore diverse stylesand thematic foci in their works. The paper concludes that the developmental history of landscape painting in Nigeria cannot be conclusive, until efforts are made by art scholars to capture its implantation and growth in other major cities/towns in the country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at artist Peju Alatise, with a particular focus on her use of textiles in her sculpture. Emphasis is given to the elements of seaming, abstraction, and realism in her work. Details on Alatise's life and on the political climate in Nigeria are presented. Other topics include race, gender, and Yoruba culture.

The article reviews the exhibition "Yinka Shonibare MBE: Egg Fight," featuring works by the British-born, Nigerian-raised artist Yinka Shonibare, on view at the Dublin City and Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art in Dublin, Ireland from February 26 until August 30, 2009.

The article presents a profile and discusses the work of the Nigerian artist and poet Obiora Udechukwu. More specifically, the author focuses on Udechukwu's appropriation of concepts taken from the tradition of Chinese literati painting of the Song dynasty. The author discusses the similarities between uli, an Igbo artistic practice, and li, or Chinese ink painting.

This paper attempts to trace determinant memories shaping elements of Yoruba artistic culture within African tradition and perspectives of art and the artists as they influence shared meanings in the tradition. To achieve this, notable iconology and dexterity of portraiture signifying the people's traditional ingenuity are considered. This is done with particular attention to a selection of Yoruba art sequestered in museums. Identified are some objects of Ifa divination like the opon Ifa (Ifa divination tray) and iroke ifa (Ifa divination tapper) which exist as museum objects. These objects are closely examined and analyzed in context of their current relevance and the historical knowledge they hold in relationship to the socio- political life of the culture they represent. They are also examined in context of site, discourse and historical influence, both on spatial and temporal levels. The styles of these products of memory are also analyzed perhaps to justify their allotted spaces within the museums where they are displayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An obituary is presented for Nigerian artist Prince Twins Seven-Seven, also known as Taiwo Bamidele Olaniyi Oyewale Oyekale Aitoyeje Osuntoki.

The article presents an in-depth profile of the 20th-century Nigerian artist and art educator Bruce Onobrakpeya. Details are given describing the career history and accomplishments of Onobrakpeya, focusing on his extensive work in art education through his foundation established in 1999, the construction of the Niger Delta Arts and Cultural Centre, and the Harmattan Workshop, a skills-based art school near the Niger River Delta. The history and mission of the school is also discussed in turn. Further comments are given regarding the conditions of the fine art and folk art cultures of the nation at the beginning of the 21st century.

The article reviews the 2011-2013 exhibition "Central Nigeria Unmasked," featuring art from ethnic groups along the Benue River, held at venues including the Fowler Museum in California, the National Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C., and the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, France.

This essay focuses on the work of the Art Society—a group formed by art students at the Nigerian College of Art, Science, and Technology, Zaria (1957-61)—and suggests that the work of its key members in the 1960s was the first significant manifestation of postcolonial modernism in Nigeria. Postcolonial modernism, the essay argues, refers to a set of formal and critical attitudes adopted by African and black artists at the dawn of political independence as a countermeasure against the threat of loss of self in the maelstrom unleashed by Western cultural imperialism and its aftermath. In defining their relationship with European and African artistic heritages, the Art Society and other postcolonial artists emphasized the importance of local and indigenous artistic resources in the making of their decidedly modernist work. The essay details the convening of the postcolonial literary and artistic avant-garde at the Mbari Artists and Writers Club, Ibadan, Nigeria, in the early 1960s and claims that their modernism was directly linked to the practice and rhetoric of political and cultural decolonization and sovereignty. Further, the essay argues that in recognizing and advocating the equal validity of the plastic and conceptual potential of indigenous African, non-Western, and European artistic traditions in the construction of the modern, the Art Society and its contemporaries testified to modernism's transnational and multicultural foundations. It suggests that the exploration of the historical implications of the encounter with multiple, sometimes contradictory logics of politics, art, and culture involves what the author describes as compound consciousness—the willful incorporation and critical resolution of the alienation and fragmented subjectivity produced by the colonial experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major constraint to the study of the visual arts as a school subject in Nigeria today is the dearth of art literature such as learned journals and textbooks. Several factors have also contributed to this problem. It is the objective of this paper to examine these and assess their impact on the study of visual arts in Nigeria in contemporary times. In doing this, it will mention the efforts that some individuals, groups of persons and organisations have made and are still making to address the problem. It concludes by stating that much could still be done to meet the demands for books on visual arts in order to enhance the study of the subject now and in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented on contemporary Nigerian artists' confrontation with modernity. The author argues that modernity supports and represses creative efforts in the Nigerian society. It is asserted that when a culture meets other cultures or migrates to a different psychological setting, challenges and confrontations become inevitable.

In Nigeria, the number of women photographers has drastically increased since the emergence of color photo laboratories and more sophisticated equipment automation. If the profession has considerably feminized itself over the past ten years in the South-West, nothing of the kind has yet happened in the rest of the country. Many young girls are placed by their parents with a studio, due to lack of means to offer them a better education. Whence an over-feminization of apprenticeship, which can but pose problems to professional authorities, who are much concerned about the future of the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her digital photomontage Working Woman (1997), U.S.-based Nigerian artist Fatimah Tuggar stages a disjunctive encounter between the aesthetic procedures of the historical avant-garde and a postcolonial feminist critique of the visual imagery of the “Afro-optimism” that became prominent in the late 1990s. Treating the “modern African woman” as a mediatic phantom rather than a taken-for-granted subject-position, Tuggar's work evokes the universal “right to communicate” increasingly claimed by anti-neo-liberal activists in the Global South over the past decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reports on the need for evidence for the certainty of African Art History which is one that confronts African art studies as a cultural genre. Emanation from an application of Hegelian art historical methodology to Nigerian art history within the general frame of African art history; Obstacles to the construction of a definitely serial Nigerian art history.

Interviews Nigerian anthropologist Titi Adepitan. Inclusion of ways in which thorn carvings fit in with more contemporary Nigerian art; State of Yoruba society in the early 1970s; Expressions of the figures that seem to be conveyed more through actions than the features; Inscriptions on the bottom of some effigy scenes.

In this article, the author reflects upon African photography. Particular focus is given to the photography of life events in Nigeria, including weddings, funerals and other social events. Additional topics discussed include the city of Benin City, Nigeria, and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), the histories of photography in Africa and the work of photographers including Samuel Fosso and Malick Sidibé. An excerpt from the periodical "Alexander's Weekly Messenger," by the writer Edgar Allen Poe is also offered.

Focuses on the transformation of a foreign figure on Benin Ivories. Elephant's tusks three to seven foot long carved in rows of figures; History of Benin kingdom's 800-year span of traditional art; European trader design on the oldest 18th century tusks; Trader motif on the early 19th century tusk.

Focuses on the source and significance of the snake-winged bird terra cotta art in Southwestern Nigeria. Motif of the snake-winged bird on an ivory double bell from Benin; Description of other art with snake-winged bird.

The article features the art from the Hausa Calabash of northern Nigeria. The said art uses primarily as household containers which provide a natural medium for such embellishment. Nigerian's decoration is an important outlet for their artistic expression. The resulting surfaces consist of elaborate arrangements of elegant shapes, patterns and visual textures. Some Hausa decorators used the type of calabash by rural Fulani women for storing and selling milk in the market. The patronage of the rural Fulani insures the continuity of a market from varieties of carved calabashes.

The article focuses on the art history of the popular leopard society in the Cross River region. This society is called Ekpe by the Efik and Ngbe by the Ejagham and their different local variants. Although there was a great ethnographic and historical attention given to this society little is known about the sources of its masked dance forms and the spread of its dance, song and drumming styles. In the postcolonial era, Ngbe has held its international character and figures prominently in the social life of the riverain peoples of the region. Each village has its own independent lodge or palaver house which functions as a repository for cult tradition.