Jimo Akolo was born into a Yoruba family in Egbe, Kogi State, Nigeria, in 1934. It was during Akolo's secondary education that his artistic talent emerged, and between 1957 and 1961, he attended the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology (NCAST), now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. In 1962, Akolo arrived in London, England, to study fine art at Hornsey College of Arts and Crafts. In the following years, Akolo would become one of the leading figures among African Modernist painters. Returning to his homeland to teach and paint, Jimo Akolo died in Lagos, Nigeria in 2023.
Painter Jimo Akolo was born into a Yoruba family in Egbe, Kogi State, Central North Nigeria, in 1934. Akolo's formative years in primary school were spent in Egbe, where Christian missionaries held sway over education and cultural attitudes and which was the first place to establish a missionary church in 1909 (Baba, 2022, p.48). European missionaries had studied the local languages and adapted the gospels accordingly. Egbe was the first place to establish a missionary church. Accordingly, Akolo’s education was shaped by the Europeanisation of the Nigerian academic system, through which he encountered European art. It was during Akolo's secondary education that his artistic talent became noticeable, while a pupil at the Government College Keffi, and he began to seriously pursue his passion for the creative arts. Between 1957 and 1961, Akolo attended the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology (NCAST), now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (Buhari, 2022, p. 8). Akolo studied alongside fellow Nigerians who would become leading African Modernist artists, Bruce Onobrakpeya and Uche Okeke. Akolo joined the Zaria Art Society around 1958, which brought together young and talented African artists to challenge the Western art narrative through their artistic practice, incorporating themes and techniques associated with African art as a legitimate movement. While at NCAST, Akolo also came under the influence and support of the British art teacher, Dennis Duerden, an Oxford graduate, who encouraged his ambitions in painting and drawing. Akolo then accepted the challenge to further his art studies through continuing education abroad.
In 1962, Akolo arrived in London, England, to study fine art at Hornsey College of Arts and Crafts, in north London, the start of his training as a painter. Akolo's studies at Hornsey plunged him into a dynamic arena of arts and activism, with teaching focused on the Modern Movement in art and design. Akolo then began to effectively apply Cubism to his West African themes in works such as Hausa Procession (1962), inspired by the northern Nigerian Hausa community, famed for their horsemanship and regal clothing. Akolo's fragmentation of the composition with geometric shapes and colours is so precise that the work appears like a mosaic. Akolo's palette of brown, green, and turquoise blue creates an integrated patchwork between the rider and the four horses, with careful rendering of the horses' hooves. The significance of the parade and the reverence in which the figures are held is conveyed by the upright posture of the Muslim riders, identified by their headgear and military regalia, and by the leader blowing a horn, all depicted in profile against a black backdrop, bordered by irregular cubes of muted brown, yellow, and grey. Throughout his artwork, Akolo fuses concepts from Western art with images drawn from West African cultural traditions, in Oyo Players (1969), in which Akolo's two abstracted figures compete at the ancient board game, the fiery 'fauve' colours in highly textured red, orange, blue and yellow flames encapsulate the intense excitement and noise that comes from winning.
Within a year of his arrival in England, in 1963, Akolo was awarded the President's Prize for a Nigerian artist. While in London, Akolo had a solo exhibition at the Commonwealth Institute (1964), sealing his reputation as a prominent African Modernist. Akolo left England c.1965 to study for a master’s degree and to then earn a Doctorate at Indiana State University in Bloomington, USA. Although Akolo spent only a brief time in England, there he gained training and insight into modern art practices which would play a significant part in his becoming a leading figure in Nigerian art and in the Modernist movement in Africa.
Back in Nigeria, Akolo took up teaching art at local schools; later, he became a Professor at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he would continue to inspire students, paint, and show his work. Akolo exhibited widely in his lifetime, in Africa, South America, Europe, and the USA, including at the renowned Festac 77 in Nigeria (1977, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture), Havana Biennial, Cuba (1986), and in a retrospective at Ko Art Space (2022). Jimo Akolo died in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2023. Posthumously, his work featured at Frieze Masters, London (2024), while he was considered one of the most important artists in the Nigerian Modernism exhibition, held at Tate Modern (2025-26). In the UK public domain his work is represented in the collections of Tate Modern and Bristol Museums.
Joy Onyejiako.