A groundbreaking exhibition at London's Tate Modern is showcasing how Nigerian artists fundamentally contributed to the modern art movement throughout the 20th century, challenging traditional narratives that typically center European masters like Pablo Picasso, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Salvador Dalí. The exhibition, titled "Nigerian Modernism," represents the first show at the prestigious museum dedicated to tracing modern art from Nigeria, featuring over 250 works created from the 1940s during British colonial rule through independence in 1960 and into the postcolonial period of the 1970s and 1980s.
Among the featured artists is Uzo Egonu, whose 1981 painting from the series "Stateless People" exemplifies the complex emotions of migration and yearning for homeland. The work, characterized by curved lines and block colors in shades of orange, yellow, and blue, depicts an artist wearing a beret with concentric circles, leaning over their work while framed by abstract shapes. Egonu, who settled in Britain in the 1940s and spent most of his career there until his death in London in 1996, crafted paintings that powerfully spoke to feelings of statelessness and the complexity of migration experience.
Osei Bonsu, a curator of International Art at the Tate Modern, explains that while modernism is often associated with European art history, there were multiple contexts within which the language of modern art developed and evolved. Nigeria served as a key hub for the development of modern African art, partly due to its colonial connections with Britain. Several featured artists had trained in London or other European cities before returning to Nigeria, where they skillfully blended both European and indigenous techniques and forms within their work.
Ben Enwonwu stands out as a pioneering figure credited with establishing Nigerian modernism as both a sculptor and painter. According to Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, professor of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of the 2008 biography "Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist," Enwonwu's works provided the cultural background for an entire generation's upbringing. "Enwonwu made it possible to think about the arts as a respectable profession," Ogbechie notes. "In terms of Africa, he was the first African artist to gain global recognition and global prestige."
Born in 1917 to an elite family in Onitsha, in southeastern Nigeria, Enwonwu earned a scholarship to train at the prestigious Slade School of Art in London. Contemporary critics placed him in the same caliber as, if not higher than, European modern masters. The renowned British sculptor Henry Moore recognized Enwonwu as a protégé and even purchased one of his early works. In 1957, Enwonwu received a commission to create a sculpture of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, which significantly elevated his already-respected artistic profile and prestige throughout countries under British colonial rule as well as those that had recently gained independence.
Despite his international recognition, Enwonwu remained deeply connected to his Igbo ethnic identity and heritage, incorporating these elements into his classical art training. He utilized traditional sculpture techniques and tools inherited from his father and portrayed Igbo masquerade culture in his paintings—a traditional ritual where masks, costumes, and performance personify ancestral spirits. As Ogbechie explains, "He foregrounded African cultural registers in his work. He was very insistent on the fact that if Monet could paint church facades and hay bales and water lilies and be considered a modern artist, there was no reason why he couldn't paint masquerades and African market scenes and have them received in the same manner."
Another significant artist receiving international recognition is Ladi Kwali, a potter and ceramicist whose portrait appears on the 20 Nigerian naira note. Born in the Gwari region of northern Nigeria, Kwali became the first female trainee at the Pottery Training Centre in Abuja in 1954. She became renowned for infusing her modern ceramics training with traditional influences, maintaining her cultural identity while embracing contemporary techniques. Helene Love-Allotey, head of Modern and Contemporary African Art at Bonhams auction house in London, expresses admiration for Kwali's approach: "I've been very drawn to her way of making, and I think it's really interesting that she stuck to her own identity and maintained a certain way of doing things."
Kwali's work exemplifies the blend of traditional and modern approaches that characterized Nigerian modernism. She learned techniques including hand-coiling from her aunts, following Gwari traditions, and incorporated recurring motifs of lizards and fish on her bowls and water vessels. This fusion of indigenous methods with contemporary training created a distinctive style that honored her heritage while participating in the broader modernist movement. Kwali is currently featured as a focal point in the exhibition "Body Vessel Clay: Black Women, Ceramics & Contemporary Art" at the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York.
The growing recognition of Nigerian modernist artists extends beyond institutional exhibitions to significant commercial success. In 2023, Kwali and her female peers from the Abuja Pottery Training Centre achieved record-setting sales when their works were auctioned at Bonhams. Similarly, in 2018, an Enwonwu painting titled "Tutu" sold for £1.67 million, demonstrating the increasing market value of these previously undervalued artists. An upcoming auction this week featuring Nigerian modernist works will include pieces by both Enwonwu and Egonu.
This renewed interest reflects a broader recognition that artists from Africa have been historically sidelined compared to their Western peers. Love-Allotey, who created and runs the Instagram account African Art History to celebrate such artists, notes there is "a wider recognition that artists from the continent, from this time, have perhaps been sidelined in comparison to their western peers." The growing appetite from both private collectors and public audiences builds on years of scholarship by academics and represents a significant shift in how art history is understood and valued.
The international art world is beginning to acknowledge that traditional practices, such as uli—a design practice indigenous to Igbo land in southeastern Nigeria where women painted directly onto their bodies or created wall murals—incorporated modernist ideas including improvisation and harmony through the use of positive and negative space, even though they may not have been viewed as modernist at the time. This recognition challenges Western-centric definitions of what constitutes modern art and expands understanding of the movement's global scope.
Curator Bonsu hopes that mainstream interest, alongside the Tate Modern exhibition, will prompt visitors to ask questions and reflect on their own cultural heritage. "We don't always center African stories when we talk about world history," he observes. "This is an opportunity to think about the immense contributions that African artists have made towards art and art history, but also to society at large." The exhibition represents not just a celebration of Nigerian artistic achievement but a fundamental reconsideration of how modern art history should be understood and told.
