This catalog examines the development of modern art in Nigeria, tracing how artists responded to colonial education, independence, and global modernist movements while forging distinctly local visual languages.
The catalog situates Nigerian Modernism within the broader story of twentieth-century art, challenging the traditional Eurocentric narrative of modernism. It explores how artists reinterpreted academic training, engaged with indigenous traditions, and articulated new cultural identities in the decades surrounding Nigerian independence in 1960.
The art book presents an historical overview of artistic perspectives with over 300 works by more than 50 artists spanning the period from 1945 to 1995. Through paintings, works on paper, and archival materials, the publication highlights key figures, artistic networks, and institutions that shaped the modernist movement in Nigeria. Essays by leading scholars analyze the intersections of politics, pedagogy, and artistic experimentation, revealing modernism as a dynamic and globally entangled phenomenon rather than a single Western trajectory.
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