So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
So, just to start us off, what sets Nigerian Modernism apart from the movement throughout the rest of Africa, and the world as a whole?
I think what this show is trying to do is showcase the diversity of output that Nigerian artists had during this period. I wouldn’t position it as unique or as if other countries didn’t have similar levels of artistic and cultural production; rather, we wanted to celebrate Nigeria as a hub. Particularly in the different cities, such as Lagos and Ashogbo, and the way artists were involved in journals and the Mbari Artists and Writers Club. Artists from Sudan and India, for instance, acknowledged that there was a thriving artistic and cultural scene in these Nigerian cities.
We also, however, wanted to showcase the complexities around Nigeria as a country that was impacted by indirect rule, particularly in the artists who were trained in a British formal arts education but then reverted back to indigenous traditions, infusing both techniques into their work to create something new - the room focusing on work from the Zaria Art Society is titled ‘New Art for a New Nation, which really speaks to the complexities surrounding colonialism, but also the ways that artists tried to find new means to like them back to their old roots. There are so many countries throughout the African continent - and the entire world - that similarly had to shape their artistic identity when creating a new visual culture. With the fifty-nine artists we chose to include in this exhibition, we wanted to show the breadth and diversity of what was produced.
In a similar vein, the exhibition notes quite early on that Nigerian Modernism had many different strands, rather than just being one movement - how did this shape your approach to curating this exhibition?
The approach we took was to focus primarily on singular artists, groupings and schools that had something to say about nationhood, community or belonging in Nigeria, whether they be grand ideas surrounding postcolonialism or just every life and rituals; we have works in the Zaria room depicting the anticipation of independence next to an artist who is looking at a group of Muslim men coming out of the mosque after Friday prayer.
So we didn’t just want to focus on these wider ideas about nationhood and Nigeria’s place in the world; we also wanted to give a sense of the locality, the importance of belonging and traditional indigeneity. Nigeria is made up of so many different ethnic and religious communities that there was a real sense of coexistence prior to the civil war that we wanted to showcase and celebrate.
And that lets the works exist on their own terms as well as responses to cultural context; does this open the door to an exploration of the tensions between national identity and individual artistic expression?
Well, I think that for too long, artists from Africa and the Middle East have been boxed in, or only justified through the use of ephemera… Here, we really wanted the artwork to be the thing that visitors encounter first, before supplementing with ephemera and archival objects. We wanted to show the artists in as much depth as we could, and we tried to show at least two or three works by each of the artists included, to really show the breadth of their practices; the same might be considering ideas of nationhood while depicting a loved one or family member, and we wanted to show this duality of artistic production in this period.
You mentioned earlier the work that artists did to shape a new visual culture for a new nation - could you tell us a little about the artists who adapted their Western training to recentre the visual traditions of Nigeria? For instance, a large room is dedicated to works by Ben Enwonwu…
Ben Enwonwu is a really interesting figure who encapsulates the context of Nigeria at the time; he was trained in a traditional academic British style at Slade, then later on became a part of Léopold Sédar Senghor’s Négritude movement. Throughout his life, he kept one foot in colonial happenings - for instance, being commissioned to make a bust of Queen Elizabeth II - while also painting these incredible works depicting Igbo masquerade. Throughout his artistic practice, he utilised his Western training to depict indigenous Igbo tradition, and in this exhibition, we have his more traditional landscapes and portraiture opposite works dedicated to his fascination with masquerade, spirituality, and the Igbo stories he was told growing up.
And his bust of Elizabeth II is opposite the Jacob Epstein sculptures, which shows the influence wasn’t just one-way…
Exactly - that’s something we really wanted to highlight in this exhibition, that these artists were part of an artistic milieu that transcended global boundaries… We really wanted to show that these artists were known internationally and should be celebrated as influential to this day. For instance, people often say that Yusuf Grilo was influenced by Picasso’s Blue Period, while some would argue that his work is influenced by the blue of the Adire textile, and that Picasso himself got a lot of his influence from African masks. It’s really dispelling the myth that modernity can only be seen through a Western lens, and that a lot of these artists were influenced by their locality as much as they were by Western academic training.
And then the National Independence of October 1960 saw a rise in new creative styles, particularly from members of the Zaria Arts Society. How did the modernism movement evolve over this period?
I think in that period you can see a mixture of classical painting that the artists would have made earlier on in their practice, and their development into using their indigenous heritage to express themselves… Uche Okeke, a big figure in the Zaria Arts Society, came up with the manifesto of Natural Synthesis, where he described synthesising Western Modernist techniques with indigenous tradition and stories; I think in the Zaria Arts Society room, you can really see artists utilising the techniques they were taught in their academic training to depict the world as they saw it.
There’s also space given to non-visual creative arts, for instance Nigerian High-Life music and the writing of Christopher Okigbo; how important was it to contextualise these artworks within the wider creative culture of Nigeria throughout the Twentieth Century?
I think it is key, although first and foremost, we wanted to spotlight the work, so we wanted any supplementary material to be quite targeted. For instance, the High-Life music is included in the Lagos room because many of the artists featured would have listened to it while they worked. Ben Enwonwu was known to listen to High-Life records while he painted, and it really reinforces that this art wasn’t made in a vacuum, but rather it’s part of a cultural phenomenon that takes its root in different forms of artistic experimentation. It’s something I think Tate Modern has always done, to show that art isn’t just something to be placed on walls or in vitrines, but it’s a living, breathing thing that surrounds us.
In the Oshogbo School room, we open with a film about Duro Ladipo’s travelling theatre, and a lot of the artists with works in the room were also actors and musicians in that type of theatre. You get the sense that a lot of these artists were part of a cultural scene interested in journal-making and coming together in clubs for music, theatre and poetry. Nigeria’s literary output in this period was fascinating, with artists such as Chinua Achebe - we’ve got a work by Uche Okeke that references his writing, and he actually illustrated Things Fall Apart, one of Achebe’s key texts. These artists were part of a cultural foundation that really set Nigeria on from independence and beyond.
And finally, how important was it to stage this exhibition during the 25th anniversary of Tate Modern?
I think centering this exhibition during the 25th anniversary says something really profound about Tate’s commitment to widening the historical narratives and discourse surrounding art… One of Tate’s first ever exhibitions was called Century City, which opened in 2001 and had rooms dedicated to Lagos, Mumbai, St. Petersburg and other cities - we’ve got work in this show that was part of that exhibition as a homage to that exhibition. I’ve also sat on the African Acquisitions Committee since it was founded in 2011, and Tate has been acquiring work from the continent to disrupt its holdings and open up the collection. There are major works in the exhibition which are already part of Tate’s collection, by artists who deserve their own solo shows, or to have books made about them and their work. It’s a long time in the making, but it’s also a beautiful start to something.
Nigerian Modernism is showing at Tate Modern until 10 May 2026.
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