Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THE MATERIAL AND IDEAS gathered in this book came to life two decades ago, when in 1993 I organized a major retrospective of Uche Okeke in Lagos. Since then I have benefited immensely from many individuals and institu- tions, but I can mention only a few here. First, I thank Obiora Udechukwu, my teacher and friend, who, by convincing me to organize the Okeke retrospective, set me on a path that eventually took me from studio practice to art history and, ultimately, to this book. I cannot overstate the role he and El Anatsui played in shaping my intellectual life in Nsukka. I thank Uche Okeke for granting me several interviews over the years, especially for giving me unhindered access to his meticulous Zaria-p eriod diaries and to the Asele Institute library and art collection. I thank also Bruce Onobrakpeya, Demas Nwoko, Jimo Akolo, Yusuf Grillo, Okechukwu Odita, Felix Ekeada, Paul de Monchaux, J. P. Clark, and Clifford Frith for sharing with me their archival materials, memories of Zaria, and information about their work. Yusuf Grillo was particularly helpful in facilitating my access to the FsAH Collection at the University of Lagos library. I am grateful to the late Segun Olusola and to Frank Aig- Imoukhuede, who gave me invaluable information on art and culture in Nigeria during the early sixties; and to Nduka Otiono for connecting me with J. P. Clark. I thank Jerry Buhari, who made it possible for me to consult the nCAsT files in the Ahmadu Bello University art department storeroom; Dapo Ade- niyi, for making my access to the Daily Times photo archives less of an ordeal; Mayo Adediran, for facilitating my access to the Kenneth Murray Archives at the National Museum, Lagos. I also thank Kavita Chellarams and Nana acknowledgments — xiv Sonoiki, of Art House Contemporary Ltd, Lagos; Vilma Eid, of Galeria Esta- ção, São Paulo; and Ulf Vierke and Sigrid Horsch- Albert, of Iwalewa- Haus, University of Bayreuth; they all helped me find many of the rare images published in this book. Many thanks to Chike Dike and the late Emmanuel Arinze for giving me access to the collections of the National Gallery of Art and the National Council for Arts and Culture, respectively. My appreciation also goes to Afolabi Kofo- Abayomi for giving me access to his private art collection, and to Chinwe Uwatse, Ndidi Dike, Ego Uche- Okeke, Peju Layiwola, John Ogene, Ngozi Akande, Teena Akan, Chuma Okadigwe, Kolade Oshi- nowo, Hilary Ogbechie, Oliver Enwonwu, Olasehinde Odimayo, and Chike Nwagbogu; and to my dear friends Uche Nwosu and Tony Nsofor, who as- sisted me in my research in Nigeria. In Eng land, I benefited from the valued advice and assistance of John Picton, Doig Simmonds, John Murray, Christopher Atkinson, and Grant Waters. I thank Ibrahim El Salahi for granting me a three- day interview at his residence in Oxford. My gratitude goes to Nnorom Azuonye and Eddie Chambers, who accommodated me and helped me find my way around Lon- don and Bristol while on research in the summer of 2003. I appreciate the assistance given to me by the following: Helen Masters, of the British Em- pire and Commonwealth Museum, Bristol; Malcolm Staig, the archivist at Goldsmiths’ college library, London; Lucy Dean, Simon Lane, and Dorothy Sheridan, at the University of Sussex; Catherine Russell, at the Otter Gal- lery of Art, University of Chichester; Lucie Marchelot, of Bonhams, London; Jessica Iles, of Browse & Darby, London; and Martine Rouleau, of the Univer- sity College London Art Museum, London. Thanks, too, to Akin Adesokan, Koyo Kouoh, Alioune Badiane, Hamady Bocoum, and Joanna Grabski for their assistance with research on images. I MUST MENTION THE most rewarding time I spent with the late Ulli Beier and with Georgina Beier in Sydney, Australia, in the summers of 2000, 2005, and 2009. The interviews and conversations that often continued until early in the morning remain most memorable. I thank them also for giving me access to the vast Ulli and Georgina Beier Archive and for the frequent discus- sions and exchange of mails on their incomparable experience of African art and culture. In a way, this book is in part a testament to Ulli’s unparalleled work in modern Nigerian art and literature. In the United States, several people have been of tremendous help in the course of my research for this book. These include Janet Stanley, of the Na- acknowledgments — tional Museum of African Art Library, and Simon Ottenberg, Rebecca Dim- xv ling Cochran, Peri Klemm, and Dianne Stewart. I thank Okwui Enwezor and Salah M. Hassan, my colleagues and coeditors at Nka: Journal of Contem- porary African Art, with whom I have shared and debated issues relating to African artistic modernism and specific aspects of this work over the years. I have benefited also from working with Enwezor on several art exhibitions that have helped me think through some of the important arguments pre- sented in this study. I thank James Meyer, Clark Poling, and Bruce Knauft, whose intellectual generosity shaped my scholarly life at Emory University and beyond. I remain ever grateful to Sidney Kasfir as my mentor and friend; she kept insist- ing that I finish work on this book before life happened to it. I must mention Kobena Mercer, Esther Da Costa-M eyer, Simon Gikandi, Steven Nelson, Peter Erickson, Valerie Smith, Okwui Enwezor, Salah M. Hassan, Sidney Kasfir, Obiora Udechukwu, and Ada Udechukwu, all of whom read earlier versions of this book’s manuscript and provided invaluable comments on it. Through the process of writing this book, since its earliest iterations, I received invaluable research funding and fellowships from Emory Univer- sity, the Pennsylvania State University, Williams College, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Founda- tion, and most importantly, Princeton University. Thanks to Hal Foster and Thomas Leisten, at the Department of Art and Archaeology, and to Valerie Smith and Eddie Glaude, at the Center for African American Studies, Prince- ton University, for allowing me generous research time and the resources I needed to complete this book and bring it to its present form. I am especially thankful to the Barr Ferree Fund, whose generous funding made the many color reproductions in this book possible. I also wish to thank Monica Rum- sey, my copyeditor; Ken Wissoker, the editorial director at Duke University Press, for believing in this work long before it became a publishable manuscript; and Elizabeth Ault and Jessica Ryan for guiding me through the rigors of manuscript preparation. I will never forget Enee Abelman, Sarah, Sharon and Larry Adams, Olu Oguibe, Simon Ottenberg, Toyin Akinosho, Jahman Anikulapo, Chinwe Uwatse, Ndidi Dike, Janet Stanley, and Alhaji Abdulaziz Ude—friends I met along the way and who supported me and my work. My deepest gratitude goes to Obiora and Ada Udechukwu, with whom I shared so many experi- ences before and after the dark days at Nsukka; and to Okwui Enwezor and Salah M. Hassan, two most enduring friends. Finally, I must mention here my deep gratitude to my mother, Joy Egoyibo acknowledgments — xvi Okeke- Agulu (“Aruagbala”), my brothers, Okwudili, Ikechukwu, and Eji- keme, and my sisters, Ogoegbunam and Onyinyechukwu, for supporting me during all these years. My late sister, Uzoamaka, and brother, Uchechukwu, saw the beginning of this work but not its completion in the form of this book. I offer it to their memory. To Marcia, my dearest friend and wife: no words can express enough my debt to you for sticking with me through the rough yet exhilarating years that began at the House of Hunger and the art studios in Nsukka and for being the mother of our most precious children, Arinzechukwu and Ngozichukwu, who have made my life complete..

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