UNTITLED
signed and dated Ben Enwonwu Lond 1945 lower right
watercolour on paper
26 x 36cm; 10 1/2 x 14 1/4in
unframed

To be sold with a Certificate of Authenticity

Property of a Private Collector, London

Provenance
Sale, Arthouse Contemporary Ltd, Nigeria, 2018

Ben Enwonwu was born in Onitsha, Nigeria. Formally trained at Goldsmith’s College of Art and later the Slade School of Art in London, Enwonwu was among the first cohort of postcolonial African artists to advocate an art form which embraced the technical stylistic developments of the European painterly and sculptural traditions. Importantly, Enwonwu combined this inter and postwar style with a focus on African subject matter to articulate a postcolonial artistic tradition for Nigeria. Often depicting scenes of precolonial cultural traditions, rural life or mythical folklore, Enwonwu’s singular technique and compelling artistic vision quickly distinguished the artist as among the most influential artists of the 20th century. Maintaining a studio in Onitsha and London, Enwonwu participated in various international exhibitions and commissions, most notably a bronze portrait of Queen Elizabeth II to mark the occasion of Nigeria’s independence.

The present work, produced in 1945 during Enwonwu’s time as a student in London, exemplifies the artist’s early artistic approach. Executed in watercolour on paper, the work depicts a group of fisherman standing on the banks of a lagoon around a typical West African fishing boat. To the distance, another group are depicted in the lagoon fishing. The looseness of Enwonwu’s brushstrokes, heavily delineated figures, and the absence of colour in large portions of the composition suggest the work was produced as a study, giving us an insight into Enwonwu’s compositional design approach. Like the realist paintings of painters like Courbet or the leisurely modernism of Seurat, Enwonwu utilises the pictorial devices of the classical European tradition to depict an everyday scene of rural Nigerian life. This underscores the efficacy of Enwonwu’s approach; his work fits seamlessly within art history, yet introduces to the canon the depictions of Nigerian visual culture which have long been marginalised as a topic of ethnographic study.