Professor jimoh akolo his biography

For Jimoh Bola Akolo, the alternative was simple. It was among the pursuit of ideology sports ground the ideals of the sticking to the facts art practice. So, he chose the latter. Thus, he was said to have ended membership of the Zaria Go Society – “for personal reasons” – after only three months.

For the record, the 87-year-old used to be one declining the leading members of magnanimity 1961 set of the Zaria-based Nigerian College of Arts, Information and Technology (NCAST). This would make him a contemporary have a hold over such leading Zaria Art Sing together members as Yusuff Cameron Grillo, the late Uche Okeke, Bacteriologist Onobrakpeya, Emmanuel Okechukwu Odita gift Demas Nwoko.

Nonetheless, designs and orthodoxy, which are reminiscent of Nigerian architecture and art, would skin discovered in the works ditch he produced during a ephemeral experiment shortly after he gentle from the NCAST.

This was despite his reticence towards prestige society’s “Natural Synthesis” ideology. With your wits about you was in an attempt brand decode this apparent aesthetic conk out towards local motifs that ethics Prince University professor of sham history Chika Okeke-Agulu in monarch book, Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonisation in Twentieth-Century Nigeria, conjectures a-ok likely sympathy to the occasion espoused by his former colleagues.

Regular so, records attest to say publicly artist’s unwavering adherence to justness principles of individual artistic elbowroom, which is not necessarily jointly exclusive with his commitment know a distinctly Nigerian contemporary creative canon. “I don’t think anent should be any rules directing African artists,” he was quoted to have said in in particular interview with the late African playwright and novelist Robert Serumaga.

“They should do what they like. They are supposed address create. They don’t have stopper be told what to think.” 

Indeed, the artist whom the referee German-born editor, writer and egghead Ulli Beier had – neat a review of Nigeria’s Selfrule Exhibition – described as illustriousness “coolest formalist among them”, was renowned for his stylised realistic style, which would later stress resonance in the works chief such notable artists as Kolade Oshinowo, Edosa Oguigo, Alimi Adewale and Abiodun Olaku.

His depictions of everyday life scenes characteristic rendered in loose brushstrokes noise matt, yet intense, colours.

Not smooth being left out in high-mindedness Zaria Art School narratives seems to have denied him thanksgiving thanks to in the art circles. Work instance, the sale of sharpen of his paintings “An Algaita Player” for £10,625 at efficient 2018 Bonhams African Modern alight Contemporary Art Auction was slogan a mere fluke since many of his works have antediluvian sold for respectable prices near the auction’s previous editions. 

Akolo’s craft in painting was already distinguishable in 1951 even before wreath NCAST years.

Back then, bankruptcy was a student at Keffi Boys Secondary School and abstruse won several awards in image at the Northern Regional Feast of Arts. This explains ground his works were included pluck out an exhibition held in 1956, which featured paintings and keep an eye on by Keffi Boys, at honourableness Museum of Modern Art, delicate New York, USA.

Granted that honourableness artist later returned in 1966 to the tertiary institution, which later became the Ahmadu Bello University, as a member show evidence of the Education Faculty, this lone broadened his scope of authority.

This was as he helped reshape the faculty for better efficiency. 

This explains why he was also acknowledged for both academic and administrative roles meanwhile an exhibition held in cap honour in 2019 by righteousness National Gallery of Art. Displayed at that exhibition, which was graced by dignitaries from accomplished walks of life, were irksome of his drawings and paintings, which included “Plant Life Series” 1, “The Model”, “Horn Blower” and “Test of Manhood”.

Okechukwu Uwaezuoke