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Sunday <strong>04</strong> <strong>Mar</strong>ch <strong>2018</strong><br />

C002D5556<br />

37<br />

Arts<br />

Tutu: The most expensive artwork by a Nigerian artist<br />

OBINNA EMELIKE<br />

With the impressive<br />

auction<br />

sales record<br />

of a<br />

number of artworks, especially<br />

from Nigerian artists in<br />

recent time, the era of looking<br />

down on pieces of artwork<br />

here in the country and across<br />

Africa is gone for good.<br />

Imagine picking a painting<br />

at an art auction in Lagos for<br />

N5 million ($25,100) in 2015<br />

and selling it for N7 million<br />

in 2017 while same painting<br />

cost N3 million 10 years ago.<br />

This was exactly the<br />

same scenario for Adetutu<br />

Ademiluyi, a painting of Ife<br />

princes by Ben Enwonwu,<br />

late Nigerian master sculptor.<br />

The painting, which was<br />

bought for less than £5,000<br />

in the late 70s was sold at<br />

an unimaginable sum of<br />

£1,205,000 at the Bonhams<br />

Africa Now Sale in London<br />

on Wednesday.<br />

The intrigue is that the<br />

painting was estimated to<br />

sell between £200,000 and<br />

£300,000 ($275,000 to<br />

$413,000) but stunned everyone<br />

who underestimated<br />

its value.<br />

Another intrigue, perhaps<br />

an irony as well, was that the<br />

painting was recovered after<br />

over 40 years in a North London<br />

flat occupied by people<br />

who probably never cleaned<br />

or appreciated the piece of<br />

artwork on their wall. They<br />

also never knew the value.<br />

Expressing his surprise<br />

at impressive performance<br />

of the artwork by a Nigerian<br />

artist, Giles Peppiatt, director<br />

of modern African art at<br />

Bonhams, a London-based<br />

auction house, said, “The<br />

portrait of Tutu is a national<br />

icon in Nigeria, and of huge<br />

cultural significance”.<br />

The Bonhams director<br />

said he delighted that the<br />

artwork generated so much<br />

interest and set a new world<br />

record for the artist. “It is very<br />

exciting to have played a part<br />

in the discovery and sale of<br />

this remarkable work”, he<br />

concluded.<br />

By the feat it achieved at<br />

the Bonhams auction sales on<br />

February 28, <strong>2018</strong>, Tutu as the<br />

artwork is popularly called, is<br />

the most expensive artwork<br />

by a Nigerian artist.<br />

Though the works of<br />

Njideka Akunyili, a Nigeria<br />

United States of Americabased<br />

artist, also command<br />

high sales record, she is considered<br />

by most art collectors<br />

as American having lived in<br />

the country for years and<br />

married to an American citizen.<br />

On <strong>Mar</strong>ch 7, 2017, at<br />

Christie’s London, her painting<br />

called “The Beautyful<br />

Ones” sold for $3,075,774<br />

(including fees), earlier “I Refuse<br />

to be Invisible”, another<br />

work of Njideka, sold for<br />

$2,647,500 (including fees)<br />

far above the estimated $1.5<br />

million-$2 million.<br />

Back home, Tutu stands<br />

tall in terms of revenue. It<br />

beats the rest including other<br />

works by Ben Enwonwu such<br />

as a set of sculptures which<br />

fetched £361,250 in May<br />

2013 in London. His 1976<br />

oil painting, Princes of Mali,<br />

which made £92,500 at Africa<br />

Now in 2014, Anyanwu<br />

sculpture from 1962, sold<br />

at May 2017 auction at Art<br />

House Contemporary Lagos<br />

for N54,050,000, Obitun<br />

Dancers, an oil on canvas<br />

sold for N52, 900, 000 in<br />

November 2016 auction,<br />

among others.<br />

Comparing Tutu with<br />

artworks by other Nigerian<br />

artists, the reigning artwork<br />

by revenue generation also<br />

beat ‘Reflekisi’, a wood panel<br />

by El Anatsui, another legendary<br />

artist, which sold for<br />

N16,675,000 at Art House<br />

Contemporary Auction<br />

sales in May 2017, and Zata,<br />

another work of El Anatsui,<br />

which features a wood<br />

panel from 2015 and was<br />

sold for N15,400,000. Tutu<br />

also surpassed the revenue<br />

of Yusuf Cameron Grillo’s<br />

‘Threatened Innocence’, an<br />

oil on board, which sold for<br />

N18,400,000 in Art House<br />

Contemporary Auction sales<br />

in May 2017 and Bruce Onobrakpeya’s<br />

‘Greater Nigeria’,<br />

which sold for N10,120,000.<br />

Tutu also grossed more than<br />

the revenue of Demas Nwoko’s<br />

‘The Wise Man’, which<br />

sold for N 9,900,000, Ben<br />

Osawe’s ‘Untitled B’, which<br />

sold for N6,380,000, and<br />

Uche Okeke’s ‘Virgin <strong>Mar</strong>y<br />

& Baby Jesus’, which sold for<br />

N5,225,000 among others.<br />

Going by the available<br />

records from galleries, auction<br />

houses and private art<br />

collectors, Tutu is currently<br />

the most expensive artwork<br />

by a Nigerian.<br />

Tutu is one of the greatest<br />

masterpieces of late Ben Enwonwu,<br />

and was on display<br />

at his funeral in 1994. The<br />

whereabouts of the other<br />

Tutu paintings remains a mystery<br />

until the discovery of the<br />

latest in the series of the three<br />

editions of the artwork in a<br />

north London flat last year.<br />

However, the current revenue<br />

feat has not only set a<br />

record for a modern Nigerian<br />

artist, but also triggers a<br />

global quest for other works<br />

by the late sculptor.<br />

Art collectors from across<br />

the world are now hunting<br />

for the third edition of the<br />

artwork, which is believed to<br />

be in the possession of some<br />

people who still do not know<br />

the value. Until the third<br />

piece is found, Tutu remains<br />

the most expensive artwork<br />

by a Nigerian artist.<br />

Nigeria Info breaks with first visual radio to audience<br />

In what looks certain<br />

to change the face of<br />

radio forever in Nigeria,<br />

Nigeria Info 99.3 – the<br />

country’s foremost Talk,<br />

News and Sports radio station,<br />

has become the first FM<br />

station to introduce Visual<br />

Radio to the country’s radio<br />

broadcast landscape.<br />

Visual Radio affords listeners<br />

the opportunity to<br />

watch their favorite local<br />

FM radio presenters in action<br />

on their computers and<br />

mobile devices deploying<br />

professional, multi-camera<br />

positions and angles with<br />

high-quality effects, graphics<br />

and multiple ad spaces.<br />

It’s a new dimension in radio<br />

broadcasting with interactive<br />

content and services for<br />

mobile radio listeners.<br />

With Visual Radio, listeners<br />

can enjoy engaging and<br />

exciting content: visuals, information,<br />

and entertainment<br />

of what’s playing over<br />

the air. Listeners can also participate<br />

in the radio station’s<br />

promotions, polls, contests,<br />

and interact with the show<br />

hosts and their special guests.<br />

In the words of Serge<br />

Noujaim, the radio network’s<br />

CEO: “We now live in an<br />

instant and content-hungry<br />

world. Modern radio must<br />

compete with multiple attention-grabbing<br />

sources to<br />

engage, maintain and grow<br />

audiences. This must not be<br />

at the expense of making<br />

great radio. It should be an<br />

addition to it. And we are<br />

proud to be the first in Nigeria<br />

to do so.”<br />

For Femi Obong-Daniels,<br />

the network’s head of stations,<br />

“Visual Radio presents<br />

a unique opportunity for<br />

advertisers to expand their<br />

radio advertising reach to a<br />

global audience online beyond<br />

the ears to countless<br />

eyeballs.”<br />

Visual Radio is already a<br />

fast-growing game-changing<br />

global phenomenon and Nigeria<br />

still has much ground to<br />

cover in catching up with the<br />

West; a quest that has now<br />

begun courtesy of Nigeria<br />

Info, with sister stations Cool<br />

FM and Wazobia FM following<br />

closely in leveraging on<br />

this new technology.<br />

Art is In Motion<br />

at 16/16<br />

Once again, 16//16,<br />

a contemporary art<br />

gallery and entertainment<br />

space in Victoria<br />

Island, Lagos, is rolling out<br />

another exhibition for the<br />

year tagged In Motion.<br />

It features an exhibition<br />

of photographs by Edouard<br />

Blondeau, marking the artist’s<br />

first solo exhibition in Lagos.<br />

In Motion is a double layered<br />

investigation into the<br />

idea of motion and how this<br />

relates to human subjectivity.<br />

Through techniques of motion<br />

blur and collage-making,<br />

Edouard explores the contrasting<br />

experiences (and<br />

their implications) of motion<br />

through space and through<br />

time.<br />

The exhibition will run<br />

from Friday <strong>Mar</strong>ch 9-18, <strong>2018</strong><br />

at 16/16 Gallery located at<br />

Flat 16, Defence Building,<br />

#16 Kofo Abayomi Street,<br />

Victoria Island, Lagos.

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