Bruce Onobrakpeya

Acquired directly from the artist

Thence by direct descent

The subject of a recent solo exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Bruce Onobrakpeya is amongst the earliest generation of pioneers of postcolonial modern art in Nigeria. Recognised within his lifetime as the preeminent printmaker of his generation, Onobrakpeya is an artist enthralled by the challenges and opportunities of experimentation. In his most prolific years, within which he contributed to the establishment of the Zaria Art Society, Onobrakpeya was severely limited by a lack of access to basic art supplies such as paper. This formed the basis of his impetus to innovate in this field, developing techniques such as the bronze-coated lino relief, in which lino plates are themselves coated in bronze to form a relief, rather than being coated with ink and pressed onto paper. The present lot exemplifies this technique. Inspired by the famed Benin Bronzes, Onobrakpeya’s patinated bronze plates contain an assemblage of the artist’s most recognisable motifs drawn from West Africa precolonial symbolic traditions, geometric and abstract shapes, and traditional myths and proverbs. The resulting work achieves an enduring quality of timelessness in its synthesis of modern and traditional visual culture.