Agboola Folarin was born into a middle-class Yoruba family in Ibadan, southwestern Nigeria, in 1936. Folarin arrived in London, England, in 1961 to study fine art at Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) and theatrical design at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Folarin would fuse Western and African techniques in his work, inspiring future generations of African artists and serving as an influential figure in African modernist sculpture. Agboola Folarin died in the United Kingdom in 2010.
Artist Agboola Folarin was born into a middle-class Yoruba family in Ibadan, southwestern Nigeria, in 1936. Folarin grew up under British colonial rule, receiving a primary and secondary education dictated by European Christian missionaries and the British educational curriculum (Garba, 2012, p.56). In 1955, at the age of nineteen, Folarin gained admission to the highly sought-after Yaba Technical Institute (YTI), now Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech), to study in the Department of Art and Printing. Folarin's courses directed students towards both creative industries and technical design, and he acquired skills suited to graphic designers, book publishers, technicians, and print setters. YTI courses, which incorporated 'painting, lettering, basic design, composing, letter press machine operation and book binding' (Yaba tech, 2020, np), aimed to meet industry standards, both in Africa and Britain. As a groundbreaking institution, YTI opened opportunities to inventive and artistic Nigerians, providing an academic training often reserved solely for the children of colonial Europeans (Ayling and Wallace, 2025, p. 117). Folarin excelled in his training, graduating from YTI in 1958, and, between 1959 and 1960, he worked as a graphic designer at the Federal Ministry of Information, before further expanding his skills by travelling to England on a student scholarship.
In 1961, Folarin arrived in London, England, to study fine art at Regent Street Polytechnic (now the University of Westminster) and theatre and costume design at the Central School of Speech and Drama (1962-65). Folarin's technical skills as a painter, sculptor, muralist, graphic and costume designer pushed the boundaries of the Western stereotype of an African artist. From 1966-67, he gained a position as an Arts Council Trainee Designer, presenting his costume designs at the Nottingham Playhouse production of Tamburlaine (Bryson, 1966, p.10). Folarin's theatrical creativity also emerged within his sculpture, producing futuristic representations. His terracotta figurine, Untitled (1969), with the appearnace of carved wood, has an elongated, masked male head turned to rest on its left shoulder, and almond-shaped eyes. The extended neck, however, forms a feminine upper body and torso, curving outward into hips, and a firmly planted, open-legged stance on a plinth. The duality of the figure's identity exposes the interplay of cross-culturalism and symbolises Folarin's fusion of Western and African sculptural traditions. Folarin's etching, God at Work (1973), applies a cubist style, creating a geometric array of images and perspectives on Yoruba religious historiography.
Folarin returned to Nigeria in 1968 as an established costume designer and master sculptor, creating his most recognised work, the sculptural murals commissioned for the prestigious grounds and buildings of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (OAU)). Folarin accepted an academic position in the Fine and Applied Arts department, where, according to writer Tai Ade Fato, his first work on campus was a metal mural (1973), located at the entrance of the Students' Union Building (Fato, 1995, p.78). Folarin's sculptural work, featuring monuments, murals, and carvings, remains on permanent public display around campus. In 1978 Murtala Mohammed International Airport was constructed in Lagos, featuring Folarin's sculptural work (Kelly, 1993, note 19) among commissioned installations by other prominent African artists, such as Ben Enwonwu, Uche Okeke, and Bruce Onobrakpeya, among others.
Folarin eventually became Professor of Fine Arts at the University, where he continued to practice his own art. He also travelled extensively to Europe, the UK and the USA for exhibitions, conferences and as a visiting artist and lecturer, inspiring the next generation of contemporary art practitioners. Agboola Folarin died in the United Kingdom, most likely in England, in 2010. Posthumously, his artwork was featured in the exhibition, Nigerian Modernism at Tate Modern (2025-26). In the UK public domain, his work is held by the UK Government Art Collection and Tate, with ephemera held in the Smithsonian Archives and the Brandywine Workshop and Archives (USA), and artwork represented in collections at the Mbari Institute for Contemporary African Art and Obafemi Awolowo University (Nigeria).
Joy Onyejiako.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Agboola Folarin]
Publications related to [Agboola Folarin] in the Ben Uri Library