Uche Okeke

Private Collection, Lagos

There is a slight warping to the upper half of the board. There is light, uneven craquelure throughout, and a straight horizontal crack running the width the work, approximately 2 cm. from the lower framing edge, as is visible in the catalogue illustration. The work exhibits very light surface marks as well as minor surface losses. There are a small number of white paint specks, most noticeable to the sitters left shoulder. There is a vertical line of light brown liquid residue to the sitters abdomen, measuring approximately 3cm. long. The work may benefit from a light clean. Otherwise the work appears to be in good condition. Inspection under ultraviolet light reveals no signs of restoration or repair.
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The present lot is a beautiful example of the artist’s amalgamation of European technique and style with African content. Painted in 1965 in Enugu, Nigeria, Kate is a depiction of the artist's sister who tragically died at a young age. Painted several years after her passing, Kate was the only family member the artist ever painted. Uche's sister sits with her hands gathered in her lap on a kind of wooden bench. She sports a light pink dress which stands out as a focal point of the work. Despite her guarded expression, Kate stares outward towards the viewer, extending an invitation for an intimate viewing experience.

For Uche Okeke, the growth of contemporary art in his home country of Nigeria was irrevocably tied to the country’s greater prosperity; the artist was a staunch advocate for the role of the arts in the development of a nation. Born in Northern Nigeria in 1933, Okeke’s practice was deeply influenced by his Igbo culture, particularly by the folklore shared with him by his mother and sister, as well as by Uli, an aesthetic tradition from south-eastern Nigeria focusing on the Igbo female form. The artist learned this technique from his mother who was a celebrated Uli draughtswoman.  Okeke would later become the father of the revival of Uli technique in contemporary Nigerian art. His time as a professor at the University of Nigeria would be a tenure branded by the rise of the Uli Revivalist Movement. Developing in the wake of the Nigerian Civil war, members sought to achieve a radical reassertion of Igbo ethnicity.

Okeke became a member of the Zaria Art Society during his time at the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, today’s Ahmadu Bello University. This society, formed during Nigeria’s post-colonial period by a group of young artists, was a means by which students could protest the European-based education they had been receiving and instead promote the instruction and creation of an art that was the result of an ‘unforced and unconscious synthesis of Europeans' media and techniques with forms, styles and contents derived from indigenous Nigerian culture. ( N’Goné Fall, Jean Loup Pivin, An Anthology of African Art The Twentieth Century, p. 247). This ideology became known as ‘Natural Synthesis’ and is essential to bear in mind when confronted with a work by this masterful artist. Despite being filled with references of traditional Nigerian Igbo culture and Uli technique, Okeke’s work does not present itself as an indigenous piece by any means. Instead, what becomes apparent is the complexity of the relationship between European and African aesthetics.