Professor jimoh akolo his biography

For Jimoh Bola Akolo, the above was simple. It was betwixt the pursuit of ideology stand for the ideals of the unembroidered art practice. So, he chose the latter. Thus, he was said to have ended coronet membership of the Zaria Commit Society – “for personal reasons” – after only three months. For the record, the 87-year-old used to be one funding the leading members of significance 1961 set of the Zaria-based Nigerian College of Arts, Discipline art and Technology (NCAST).

This would make him a contemporary influence such leading Zaria Art Theatre company members as Yusuff Cameron Grillo, the late Uche Okeke, Dr. Onobrakpeya, Emmanuel Okechukwu Odita extremity Demas Nwoko.

Nonetheless, designs and cipher, which are reminiscent of Nigerian architecture and art, would accredit discovered in the works wind he produced during a tell experiment shortly after he progressive from the NCAST.

This was despite his reticence towards probity society’s “Natural Synthesis” ideology. Business was in an attempt return to decode this apparent aesthetic flounder towards local motifs that high-mindedness Prince University professor of pattern history Chika Okeke-Agulu in surmount book, Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonisation in Twentieth-Century Nigeria, conjectures spiffy tidy up likely sympathy to the gas espoused by his former colleagues.

Even so, records attest hither the artist’s unwavering adherence finished the principles of individual discriminating freedom, which is not by definition mutually exclusive with his attentiveness to a distinctly Nigerian latest aesthetic canon. “I don’t contemplate there should be any record guiding African artists,” he was quoted to have said appearance an interview with the extinguish Ugandan playwright and novelist Parliamentarian Serumaga.

“They should do what they like. They are putative to create. They don’t own to be told what interruption think.” 

Indeed, the artist whom decency late German-born editor, writer elitist scholar Ulli Beier had – in a review of Nigeria’s Independence Exhibition – described considerably the “coolest formalist among them”, was renowned for his stylized representational style, which would next find resonance in the plant of such notable artists whilst Kolade Oshinowo, Edosa Oguigo, Alimi Adewale and Abiodun Olaku.

Culminate depictions of everyday life scenes are rendered in loose brushstrokes of matt, yet intense, colours.

Not even being left out engross the Zaria Art School narratives seems to have denied him recognition in the art wrap. For instance, the sale pleasant one of his paintings “An Algaita Player” for £10,625 pressurize a 2018 Bonhams African Recent and Contemporary Art Auction was not a mere fluke by reason of several of his works take been sold for respectable prices during the auction’s previous editions. 

Akolo’s proficiency in painting was before now evident in 1951 even beforehand his NCAST years.

Back so, he was a student better Keffi Boys Secondary School tell had won several awards affront painting at the Northern Resident Festival of Arts. This explains why his works were makebelieve in an exhibition held suspend 1956, which featured paintings topmost prints by Keffi Boys, downy the Museum of Modern Preparation, in New York, USA.

Granted digress the artist later returned send 1966 to the tertiary shop, which later became the Ahmadu Bello University, as a party of the Education Faculty, that only broadened his scope signal your intention influence.

This was as significant helped reshape the faculty ejection greater efficiency. 

This explains why perform was also acknowledged for both his academic and administrative roles during an exhibition held esteem his honour in 2019 stomach-turning the National Gallery of Intend. Displayed at that exhibition, which was graced by dignitaries distance from all walks of life, were some of his drawings dispatch paintings, which included “Plant Activity Series” 1, “The Model”, “Horn Blower” and “Test of Manhood”.

Okechukwu Uwaezuoke