Ben Enwonwu

Private Collection, France

“Negritude meant everything. It meant the revitalization of African force, both in art and in all forms of creativity.”

As a proponent of the Négritude movement, Enwonwu argued that independent Africans should root their identity in the rich history and symbolism of the continent. His interpretation of Igbo feminine power draws from the Black Mother symbolism found in Léopold Sédar Senghor’s philosophy, in which he immersed himself in 1940s London and Paris.

1930s Paris, with its diverse and tolerant art scene, became the centre of the international Négritude movement, a term coined by the Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, French Guianese poet Léon Damas, and poet and future Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor. In the face of growing fascism, black students, scholars and artists from French colonies in Africa and the Caribbean got together with the aim of promoting an appreciation of the history and culture of black people. They also wanted to draw attention to the experience of those who had lived under colonial rule, including slavery.

At the outbreak of the Second World War its leaders left Paris for the Caribbean and Africa and new forms of Négritude arose in these locations, including creolisation in the Caribbean and the Natural Synthesis movement in Nigeria. After the war Paris again became the centre for Négritude activities. Many artists from Africa and the Caribbean came to Europe to study and gravitated to Paris, meeting at the Clamart tea-shop, the Négritude base on the Left Bank. Among these were London students Frank Bowling, Aubrey Williams, Donald Locke, Ben Enwonwu and Uzo Egonu.