Insights
A 1920s oil painting carries more than pigment on canvas. Its surface records the artist’s materials, working methods, surrounding environment, and the decades…
El Anatsui’s career traces a remarkable route from a small coastal community in Ghana to the world’s leading museums, biennials, and galleries. His work…
The Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon Art Foundation, widely known as OYASAF, offers an expansive view of Nigerian and African creativity. Its permanent…
Adire is a family of indigo-dyed textiles associated especially with Yoruba communities in southwestern Nigeria. Its name is commonly translated as “tied and…
Museums across Africa are essential places for preserving memory, teaching history, and creating conversations about identity. Their collections connect local…
Contemporary Nigerian sculpture extends far beyond carved wood or cast bronze. Artists working today use steel, fabric, paper, found objects, digital…
Photography gave Nigeria a visual language for recording political transformation. During the years surrounding independence in 1960, cameras documented…
Supporting Art Scholars: A Look at OYASAF’s Research Grants Program reflects a wider need in Nigerian and African art. Serious scholarship requires time,…
Nigerian modernist art changed the terms through which African creativity could be seen, studied, and valued. It emerged during a period of political…
A Benin bronze plaque can look still and self-contained: a framed metal surface, a courtly figure, carefully rendered regalia, and a history that seems to end…