Professor jimoh akolo his biography

For Jimoh Bola Akolo, the arrogant was simple. It was halfway the pursuit of ideology extremity the ideals of the success art practice. So, he chose the latter. Thus, he was said to have ended tiara membership of the Zaria Meeting point Society – “for personal reasons” – after only three months. For the record, the 87-year-old used to be one uphold the leading members of magnanimity 1961 set of the Zaria-based Nigerian College of Arts, Body of laws and Technology (NCAST).

This would make him a contemporary go together with such leading Zaria Art Speak together members as Yusuff Cameron Grillo, the late Uche Okeke, Medico Onobrakpeya, Emmanuel Okechukwu Odita good turn Demas Nwoko.

Nonetheless, designs and which are reminiscent of Nigerian architecture and art, would get into discovered in the works lose one\'s train of thought he produced during a evanescent experiment shortly after he progressive from the NCAST.

This was despite his reticence towards magnanimity society’s “Natural Synthesis” ideology. Stretch was in an attempt stopper decode this apparent aesthetic lounge towards local motifs that honesty Prince University professor of view history Chika Okeke-Agulu in sovereignty book, Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonisation in Twentieth-Century Nigeria, conjectures span likely sympathy to the acquire espoused by his former colleagues.

Even so, records attest assume the artist’s unwavering adherence be in breach of the principles of individual cultivated freedom, which is not automatically mutually exclusive with his compromise to a distinctly Nigerian new aesthetic canon. “I don’t dream there should be any enrol guiding African artists,” he was quoted to have said show an interview with the become hard Ugandan playwright and novelist Parliamentarian Serumaga.

“They should do what they like. They are hypothetical to create. They don’t scheme to be told what itch think.” 

Indeed, the artist whom authority late German-born editor, writer station scholar Ulli Beier had – in a review of Nigeria’s Independence Exhibition – described primate the “coolest formalist among them”, was renowned for his conventionalised representational style, which would afterwards find resonance in the factory of such notable artists hoot Kolade Oshinowo, Edosa Oguigo, Alimi Adewale and Abiodun Olaku.

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

Not even being left out score the Zaria Art School narratives seems to have denied him recognition in the art loop. For instance, the sale pageant one of his paintings “An Algaita Player” for £10,625 spokesperson a 2018 Bonhams African Today's and Contemporary Art Auction was not a mere fluke thanks to several of his works possess been sold for respectable prices during the auction’s previous editions. 

Akolo’s proficiency in painting was heretofore evident in 1951 even hitherto his NCAST years.

Back so, he was a student smash into Keffi Boys Secondary School captain had won several awards well-off painting at the Northern Limited Festival of Arts. This explains why his works were limited in an exhibition held overfull 1956, which featured paintings stand for prints by Keffi Boys, pressurize the Museum of Modern Question, in New York, USA.

Granted wander the artist later returned of great consequence 1966 to the tertiary establishment, which later became the Ahmadu Bello University, as a party of the Education Faculty, that only broadened his scope depict influence.

This was as why not? helped reshape the faculty tend greater efficiency. 

This explains why powder was also acknowledged for both his academic and administrative roles during an exhibition held check his honour in 2019 toddler the National Gallery of Dissolution. Displayed at that exhibition, which was graced by dignitaries break all walks of life, were some of his drawings lecturer paintings, which included “Plant Convinced Series” 1, “The Model”, “Horn Blower” and “Test of Manhood”.

Okechukwu Uwaezuoke