Ben Enwonwu: 17 Facts You Need to Know About One of Africa's Most Important Artists

Odinigwemmadu Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu (MBE), simply known as Ben Enwonwu was one of Africa’s foremost artist to gain global recognition in the 20th century. His five decade long career was an extraordinary representation of African art and his work still inspires. 

Enwonwu was one of the first Nigerians to be trained in the European style and techniques of visual representation by the British government in the Murray School. His first solo exhibition in Lagos (1944) won him a scholarship to further his art education at the Slade School of Fine Arts in London, becoming the first African to graduate from the school. He finished with a first class diploma in sculpture in 1947.

Between 1937-44 he served as an art educator in the colonial administration and taught in various government schools and colleges in Umuahia, Calabar, Ikot Ekpene, and Benin City.

Despite his close ties to the Western world, Ben Enwonwu supported the Negritude movement, an anti-colonial cultural, political movement founded by a group of African and Caribbean students in Paris in the 1930s. He also created a series of works in which he promoted all things black and all things beautiful.

His 5-decade long career was marked by numerous negritude paintings comprising of dense silhouetted central (female) figures, sometimes surrounded by ghostly forms moving in the background. These silhouettes are his representations of race consciousness through black identity.

As an element of black culture, Enwonwu explored dance as a theme in his works. His paintings and sculptures portrayed moving figures rendered in a unique style that captured and glorified the essence of dance.

Ben Enwonwu celebrated Africa and blackness through the concept of Negritude which is thought to be strongly linked with the Harlem Renaissance. According to Enwonwu (1968), “the African philosophy of Negritude has defined the kind of knowledge that characterized the African spirit and mind.” 

Most of Enwonwu’s paintings and sculptures are filled with elongated forms and characters. This was a dominant feature in his aesthetic idiom as an artist. According to him, “ I enlongate because of the feelings I have as a Nigerian, for Nigerians are aspiring to grow, in politics, in trade, in art, in every aspect of life.” 

As a skilled landscapist, Enwonwu illustrated his view of settings in Nigeria on numerous colorful landscape paintings while exploring trends in rural and urban life all over the country. His oeuvre of landscapes includes towns and villages, forests, rivers, roads etc.      

The huge influence of the Onitsha-Igbo culture and heritage is very evident in Ben Enwonwu’s art. Using paintings of indigenous traditional dancers, ceremonial masquerades and ritualistic performances in shrines, he not only identified with his roots, but also celebrated and showcased the rich, beautiful culture and heritage of the Igbo people to everyone.

Commenting on Aynanwu, Enwonwu said, “My aim was to symbolise our rising nation. I have tried to combine material, crafts, and tradition, to express a conception that is based on womanhood—woman, the mother and nourisher of man. In our rising nation, I see the forces embodied in womanhood; the beginning, and then, the development and flowering into the fullest stature of a nation—a people!”
Ben Enwonwu

In 1956, Ben Enwonwu received the greatest commission of his career as an artist. The famous life-size bronze portrait of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England was conceived by the queen herself to commemorate her visit to Nigeria the same year and also celebrate the relationship between Nigeria and Britain.

Execution of the portrait commenced in 1957. The queen was recorded to have sat 12 times for the preliminary sketches that would finally be developed into the sculpture.  This painting was developed in 1958 from the first live sketch of the Queen.

Enwonwu became the first professor of fine art (in 1971) at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), where he taught and retired in 1975. He wrote and published widely on African art in numerous journals and magazines. 

In 1959, he was appointed art supervisor in the Information Service Department office in Nigeria, a position he held till 1968.  During this time, he led the Nigerian contingent to the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal in 1966. Upon his resignation as art supervisor, he was reappointed as Cultural Advisor to the Federal Government of Nigeria same year and served till 1971.

In 1977, he was appointed art consultant in the International Secretariat for the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC 77”) hosted in Lagos, contributing to the success of the landmark event on the cultural celebration of Africa. 

Upon completion of his studies in London, Enwonwu was appointed art adviser to the Nigerian government in 1948. He executed numerous commissions for the government and popular individuals as a freelance artist.

As one of Africa’s most influential artist of the 20th century, Ben Enwonwu was recognised with a number of awards and honours including: Member of the Distinguished Order of the British Empire (MBE) and the youngest holder of that honour in the commonwealth (1958); Honorary Doctorate Degree by Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria (1969); and Officer of the National Order of the Republic in Senegal (1971) among others.