He had died 24 years ago at the age of 77 and prior to his death he was the first Professor of Fine Art at the University of Ife, which is now Obafemi Awolowo University. Aside this, 24 years down the line, one of Ben Enwonwu’s paintings of Ile-Ife princess, Adetutu Ademiluyi, known as Tutu, has fetched in a London auction £1, 205,000, four times more than expected.
In naira terms, it was sold for N508, 358, 301, an African record.
The Nigerian masterpiece, which was found in a north London flat recently, was initially declared missing.
The painting, ranked by arts collectors with Mona Lisa, was done by Nigeria’s renowned artist, the late Ben Enwonwu in 1974.
Bonhams, the auction company, announced the record price for the paint, which measures 97 x 66.5cm and was signed by Enwonwu and dated 1974.
The identity of the buyer of the Lot 47 has not been disclosed yet.
Other Enwonwu’s paintings were also sold, but none fetched anything near Tutu.
Paintings like ‘Itachafo Muo’, another of Enwonwu’s painting, was sold for £18,750. ‘A Tree Lined Village’ got £40,000, ‘Negritude’ £100,000 and ‘Female Form’, £110,000, among others.
Other Nigerian artist whose work was also of great estimate during the auction was Yusuf Adebayo Cameron Grillo. His ‘Evangelists: Cymbal, Triangle and Tambourine’, done in 1964, was sold for £56,250.
Describing Ben Enwonwu’s portraits of Tutu, Bonhams on his website said it has achieved a high level of celebrity because the paintings were some of the most enigmatic works produced by a Nigerian artist in the 20th century.
“The violence of the Nigerian/Biafran conflict (1967-1970) was still fresh in the public consciousness, and academic institutions were tasked with promoting a spirit of national reconciliation. Enwonwu embraced this duty, using Negritude ideology and imagery to explore issues of cultural identity and political contestation that the Nigerian civil war had laid bare. The artist created a number of his most famous works during this period, including three portraits – all titled Tutu – of a young Yoruba woman named Adetutu Ademiluyi, a granddaughter of a previous Ooni (king) of Ife.
“Enwonwu frequently made trips to the countryside surrounding Ife, sketching the landscape and recording cultural traditions and practices. It was during one of these visits that he encountered Tutu. He was so impressed by her beauty and unusual features that he asked her parents for permission to paint her. Enwonwu may have also been motivated by her status as a royal princess of Ife – he was also of royal lineage, descended from the Umuezearoli of Onitsha. In addition, winning the approval of the Ife royal house would offer the artist protection from any problems arising from his Igbo ethnicity, a contentious issue in post-war Nigeria.”
Okri said Enwonwu was already world-renowned as the greatest living African artist when, in the summer of 1973, three years after the end of the Nigerian civil war, he encountered the princess and was entranced, asking to paint her portrait.
Enwonwu was a student at Goldsmiths, Ruskin College, Oxford, and the Slade in England in the 1940s. He became more widely known when he was commissioned to create a bronze sculpture of the Queen during her visit to Nigeria in 1956, a work that now stands at the entrance of the parliament buildings in Lagos.
However, Tutu is regarded as his greatest masterpiece – the image was on display at his funeral in 1994. The whereabouts of the other Tutu paintings remains a mystery. “His works were like his children,” his son says.
Prints were made of the 1973 Tutu, which now adorn the walls of living rooms across Nigeria, and Enwonwu subsequently painted two more that were sold in an effort to avoid parting with the first. The second version, painted in 1974, was the one discovered in London.
But in 1994, as Enwonwu was dealing with cancer, his house was burgled and the 1973 Tutu was stolen. “He was devastated. It accelerated his death,” says Oliver.
Ben Okri, a Nigerian novelist writing in the forthcoming Bonhams magazine, said he hoped Tutu’s rediscovery would help bring about a wider re-evaluation of African art.
“Traditional African sculpture played a seminal role in the stage in the early years of the 20th century, but modern African artists are entirely absent from the story of art,” he said.
