Ben Enwonwu was born in Onitsha, Nigeria in 1917, moving to England in 1944 to take up a scholarship at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. He returned to Nigeria after the war but spent the years of the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70) in London again, successfully negotiating his practice between the two countries, exhibiting extensively in Nigeria, England, and the USA, until his death in Nigeria in 1994. Arguably one of the most influential African artists of the 20th century, his career in painting and sculpture, and as a lecturer, helped pioneered African Modernism.
Artist Ben Enwonwu (né Odinigwe Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu) was born in Onitsha, Nigeria on 14 July 1917. His mother was a successful textile merchant and his father, a technical assistant for the Royal Niger Company, but also an Igbo sculptor of masks and religious and ceremonial objects, through which Enwonwu first encountered the traditions of Igbo art, eventually inheriting his father's sculpting tools. Enwonwu initially studied art under Kenneth C Murray at Government College, Ibadan, and Government College, Umuahia (1939–44). Murray’s instruction included histories of European art and criticism as well as focussing on indigenous craft practices and materials and the study of the artworks of indigenous Nigerian communities. Murray organised a group show for his students (known collectively as the ‘Murray Group’), including Enwonwu, at the Zwemmer Gallery in London (established by émigré, Anton Zwemmer) in 1937. After completing his studies, Enwonwu taught art at various institutions, including Edo College, Benin City, Nigeria, where his encounters with the culture of the Edo Kingdom of Benin greatly influenced his life and work.
In 1944 he held his first solo exhibition in the Lagos Exhibition Hall, which included 39 watercolours, 12 wood sculptures and 12 oil paintings. The same year, he received a scholarship to study at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where he was the first African student to be admitted. Enwonwu relocated with the Slade when it was evacuated to the Ruskin School of Drawing, University of Oxford, during the war (1944–46), before returning for the final year of his degree in London (1946–47). In 1949 he gained a Postgraduate Diploma in Anthropology from the University of London, focusing on West African ethnography. He exhibited in group shows with The London Group (1945–46) and participated in the International Exhibition of Modern Art, Musee d' Art Moderne, Paris (1946). In 1947 he held the first in a series of exhibitions at art dealer William Ohly's Berkeley Galleries in London, which specialised in early and non-Western art. He had a second exhibition at Heal’s Mansard Gallery, London in 1948, followed, in 1950, by a further series in New York, Boston, Howard University in Washington DC, and Gallery Apollinaire in Milan, consolidating his reputation as a pioneering African modernist. In the 1950s he travelled, lectured, and exhibited extensively, especially in the USA and Africa, where he also acted as an art and cultural advisor to the colonial Nigerian government. In 1953 he was commissioned by University College Ibadan to produce a sculpture for the institution’s new Christian chapel. The resulting work, Risen Christ, a depiction of an Africanised Christ and Mary in mahogany, gained him acclaim in both Africa and Britain. In 1955 he was awarded an MBE for his contributions to art and culture, and, in 1956, he was commissioned to sculpt a bronze portrait of HRH Queen Elizabeth II to commemorate her visit to Nigeria. He unveiled the work at the annual exhibition of the Royal Society of British Artists (RBA) in 1957, receiving their Bennett Prize in the same year and becoming a senior member of the Society in 1958.
During the Nigerian/Biafran Civil War (July 1967– January 1970) Enwonwu remained in war-imposed exile in England, returning to Lagos after the conflict to resume his position with the Nigerian government. He maintained studios in London and Lagos, lecturing at Lagos University and as visiting artist at the Institute of African Studies at Howard University, Washington DC. In 1971 he was appointed the first Professor of Fine Arts at University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU)), Ile-Ife, Nigeria. From 1975-77 he served as Director and special consultant to the International Secretariat of the Second World Festival of Black Arts and Culture (FESTAC). A retrospective of Enwonwu’s work was presented by the RBA in 1985 at the Mall Galleries, London, which included over 250 artworks from across his career. In 1986 he was diagnosed with cancer and, unable to carve or produce sculpture, turned his attention fully to painting for his remaining years.
Ben Enwonwu died in Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria on 5 February 1994. His work is featured in numerous UK public collections including the Ben Uri Collection, Government Art Collection, and University of Birmingham, while a photographic portrait of the artist is held by the National Portrait Gallery, London. During his lifetime, Enwonwu was regarded as one of Africa’s greatest artists, whose painting and sculpture fused traditions of European art, particularly easel painting, with African figurative sculpture and the forms of visual representation from his indigenous Igbo roots, with Nigerian postcolonial identity. His work is also held in public collections internationally, including the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art, Pan-Atlantic University, Lagos, and the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, USA.
Ben Enwonwu in the Ben Uri collection
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Ben Enwonwu]
Publications related to [Ben Enwonwu] in the Ben Uri Library