Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu M.B.E (Nigerian, 1917-1994) My Mama At 80
Provenance : [Timeline chronologique]
2008-01-01 | He argued for the importance of embracing Western techniques while retaining the traditions of African art: 'Whatever the neo-African culture is today, art should express it and should employ all the native and acquired means that are possible' (Enwonwu quoted in Ogbechie, 2008: p. 79)
[Propriété non datée]
- Painted in 1973, My Mama at 80 offers a striking portrait depicting the mother of the renowned pioneer of African modernism Odinigwe Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu MBE, better known as Ben Enwonwu (1917-1994)
- She used the city as the base for her successful business trading textiles
- While the demands of the textile trade frequently took Iyom Nweze away from the family when Enwonwu was a young child, they developed an exceptionally close relationship in her later years
- The depth of this bond is illustrated through the intimate quality of the artist's approach to his subject
- His expressive handling of paint is applied using individuated brushstrokes
- The tactility of the strokes convey the psychological complexity of the subject through visceral passages of blue-green, creamy white, and deep brown, all juxtaposed with flushed pinks to great effect
- Enwonwu's depiction of his mother conveys the matriarch's reputation as a formidable force in family and business matters alike
- The composition of the portrait is closely cropped to her head and shoulders to focalise her direct gaze and stoic expression
- Her command of authority is further expressed through Enwonwu's decision to paint Iyom Nweze in her Òtù Ọdụ title regalia (also referred to as Omu regalia in S
- Ogbechie, 2008: p. 194)
- The Ọdụ title was granted to Onitsha women who were deemed to be important contributors to the progress, development, and peace of the local community
- They were understood to constitute the elite women's socio-political and economic group and were accordingly granted the title Iyom
- In the portrait, Enwonwu depicts Iyom Nweze in the official dress of the Òtù Ọdụ: two white loin cloths tied over each other, a white head tie, and a coral bead necklace
- These were worn in addition to bangles and anklets made from elephant tusk - a valuable material which symbolises wealth, beauty, royalty, and authority in Onitsha culture
- As the only known painting of his mother by the artist, the portrait is exceptional within Enwonwu's oeuvre
- The highly personal subject matter situates the work within a broader lineage of artists who sought to represent close family members through their artmaking – a trope particularly prevalent in the Western painterly traditions that constituted a significant part of Enwonwu's training in Nigeria and at the Slade School of Fine Art in London where he studied in the 1940s
- The non-representational dappled blue background and passages of pink paint applied to the cheeks of the subject particularly evoke Paul Cézanne's portraits of his wife, Marie-Hortense Fiquet, created in the 1880s
- The French artist's experimental approach to painterly technique was of great inspiration to Enwonwu
- During his lecture tour in the United States in 1949, he declared, 'Cézanne was a bad technician but he is among the greatest of the Impressionists' (Enwonwu quoted in S
- Ogbechie, 2008: p. 107)
- Taking a similarly experimental approach to his own portraiture, Enwonwu fused such references to Western modes of figurative representation with traditional Igbo tropes to formulate a distinctly modern Nigerian aesthetic
- This impetus to cultural hybridity championed by Enwonwu was shared by other influential pioneers of Nigerian modernism who were similarly responding to figurative Western t
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