Ben Enwonwu

Acquired directly from the artist, Ibadan, circa 1953

Bequeathed to the current owner

''The old art of Benin, which ranged from the geometric and stylistic symbols of ancestral spirits, to the sophisticated naturalistic portrait bronzes cast in cere perdue technique, has become a thing of the past and the traditions which inspired it are going, in fact, almost gone.''

THE ARTIST, INTERVIEW WITH THE HARMON FOUNDATION, 8 DECEMBER 1950

As is characteristic of many of his paintings, in this Benin portrait Enwonwu employs repetition of forms to create depth and rhythm. The subject at the forefront is surrounded by young men; those in the foreground with distinct characteristics fading to anonymous others at the back, his use of atmospheric perspective suggesting they go on and on; too many in number to be the man’s sons.

One is put in mind of his later commissioned portraits of noblemen, including a portrait of Chief Rotimi Williams (1920-2005) titled 'A Man and His Gods' and a portrait of Chief Shafi Lawal Edu (1911–2002) ‘Man and Masks – A Mirage‘; but these are real men surrounding the principal, not gods or ghosts as in these later works. The sitter is clearly a leader of men, but his everyday clothes rule him out as royal or a cleric. It is possible to conclude he is a teacher or, given the fact that this is a Benin subject, a traditional guild master.

Enwonwu’s own talent had been recognised as a teenager by his art teacher K.C. Murray at the prestigious Government College, Umuahia, where he later taught art himself. On the outbreak of World War II, when Government College was repurposed as an army base, he was transferred first to Calabar and then to Benin City in 1941, to take up a post at Edo College. This was during the reign of Oba Akenzua II (R. 1933-1978), whose father Oba Eweka II (R. 1914-1933) had rebuilt the royal palace and restored the craft guilds following the British punitive expedition in 1897.

At this early stage in his career Enwonwu was still very much focused on sculpture, which he had first studied under his own father, a traditional wood-carver in Onitsha, a town with historic ties to the Benin Kingdom. Enwonwu took advantage of his time in the city to apprentice with the world-renowned guild of Benin bronze casters, the Igun Eronmwon, which at that time was led by Chief Omoregbe Inneh. Here he first learned the cire perdue process for making bronze/brass sculpture, and he immersed himself in studying Edo cultural traditions and observing traditional festivals.

The city had a profound and lasting impact on the young artist, and he referenced Benin culture not only whilst he was in Benin, but continued to hold on to memories and imageries of its traditions even when he travelled to England to study in 1944. He took lessons in painting and drawing at Goldsmiths before undertaking his diploma at the Slade, completing his post-diploma studies in 1948. We know he returned to Benin in 1949, when he sculpted Mr. Osagboivo, the head of the Igbesanmwan, the ivory and wood carvers' guild.

The 1950s was an incredibly productive time for Enwonwu; he had enjoyed a highly successful exhibition tour in the United States in 1950 and returned an international star. He enjoyed being back home in Nigeria, where he toured the country and documented contemporary life in the years leading to independence. In 1951 he received a commission from the colonial government to produce wood-relief panels for the newly constructed Nigerian House of Representatives, for which he was eager to illustrate the country’s cultural diversity. It may have been research for this commission that took him to Benin once more, when the present lot was painted.

Until now, this fascinating portrait was in the collection of a prominent British academic and writer, who befriended Enwonwu when he was lecturing at University College Ibadan in the early 1950s, when this work was acquired. Enwonwu was in Ibadan 1953-54 working on his commission to produce a sculpture for the university's Chapel of Resurrection. This commission led to Enwonwu’s most accomplished wooden sculpture, The Risen Christ, carved from a four-ton block of Iroko wood.