Le Devoir, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ยท Saturday, March 22, 1958
[Mostly a rough auto Google translation.]
Thanks to UNESCO … And Africa
Artists’ meeting
Two young men recently met in Paris. They had much to talk about, having much in common. Of African descent, both were traveling abroad on UNESCO grants, and both were artists. But one was leaving Africa for the first time, while the other was visiting it for the last time.
John Biggers, an American painter, had just spent six months in Ghana and Nigeria. Felix Idubor, a Nigerian sculptor, had been studying for seven months in the UK, Belgium, and France.
Born in 1928 in Benin, in western Nigeria, Idubor is self-taught. He began engraving at the age of eight, and four years later he was already earning a living from his craft. He has exhibited his work several times in Nigeria. His last exhibition, organized at the Imperial Institute while he was studying in London thanks to a UNESCO scholarship, was a rare success and was praised by critics from various countries in particularly laudatory terms.
Before assuming his current position as head of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of South Texas in Houston, John Biggers taught at several American schools. African art had always greatly interested him, and his trip to Ghana and Nigeria was a kind of pilgrimage, a return to his roots.
“By going to Africa,” he said, “I wanted to meet the people and discover the origin of their artworks, because if you ignore a people, you don’t know their art. I wanted to live with the people. And indeed, this great expressive force that characterizes African sculpture, I found it immediately in the people; this free and spontaneous expression accompanies all their actions, whether they are walking or speaking.”
“At the same time, I wanted to study the relationships that can exist between Africans and Americans of African descent. For example, I wanted to know if I would find there the wonderful esprit de corps that one observes in the small communities of the Southern United States, the atmosphere of the crowd and the market where goods are exchanged but also ideas, and where bonds of friendship are forged. I found all of that in Ghana and Nigeria. I even mentioned it to friends; I felt completely at home.
“And from the perspective not of the mass but of individuals, I also noticed a close kinship between Black Africans and those of America. In West Africa, older women are called “Mummie” or “Mamma”; in the United States, they are called “Mammy.” This type of woman, the quintessential mother, devoted to her family as well as others, and this vast maternal feeling – I rediscovered in Ghana and Nigeria all of which had been the very atmosphere of my childhood. Also, for me, African art is alive. I no longer think of it as cold, superb museum pieces that influenced Picasso and other great artists at the beginning of the century, but, thanks to my contact with the people who created these works, as living, familiar things.
“I understood that, fundamentally, this rich art is a religious art, born of a profound inspiration.” born out of a profound mystical inspiration. When visiting the holy sites of Ghana and Nigeria, one thinks of the early Christian churches, their altars where the figures of sacred history are sculpted. In Nigeria, I visited several temples dedicated to the worship of Drissa; on the altars, one sees numerous figures that are not strictly speaking objects of worship but sacred symbols. It could be, for example, an ancestor to whom the tribe owed great blessings, but it was neither the man nor the statue that was worshipped.
“That African art is the expression of a profound religious feeling, this discovery has been of great importance to me because now, when I admire the marvelous plastic forms proper to African art, I understand (or at least I think I understand) the WHY of these forms. Only an expressionist, and not realist art, can express the spirit.”
Nigerian Felix Idubor fully confirms Mr. Bigger’s impressions. He says that in the past, most art in Africa was inspired by ancient secret cults, such as the “ju-ju,” and sculpture represented the spirits of ancestors. In contrast, masks were sculpted and painted primarily for ritual harvest festivals, and certain bronze statues were purely decorative. “Until the last century.” Mr. Idubor states, “Wealthy people patronized artists, bought their works, and intended them for their families to perpetuate the memory of their traditional heroes. Artists from African communities were not lacking in work, particularly during the 16th and 17th centuries. They enjoyed the esteem and respect of all. Benin, in Nigeria, had a great artist, Ezegbene, famous for his thefts. We can also mention Igha, the famous engraver from Ite, who owed his talent to being invited to Benin by King Ozuala to teach his art there.
When Felix Idubor is asked if he felt influenced by Western art during his time at the Royal College of in London, he replied that he hoped he hadn’t been too influenced.
“My experience has convinced me,” he said, “that it is extremely useful for African artists to study in the West, but only on the condition that they don’t become so impressed by Western art that they lose sight of traditional forms and inspiration.
“The grant that UNESCO awarded me gave me the opportunity to accomplish two important things: to learn new techniques and to show Europeans some aspects of modern West African art. Before leaving the country in April 1957, I informed the Nigerien government that it seemed worthwhile to exhibit my work abroad by organizing an exhibition in London. The government gave me its approval, and it was with its help that 37 of my statues, some of which were not yet finished, were sent to me in London. To these statues I added those I made during my stay at the Royal College. In this way, I think the proof is clear: even if I were to remain in Europe for many years, I would retain in my work an African technique and style.” (UNESCO)
