By Bruce Onobrakpeya
Ulli Beier was one of the few expatriates involved inthe pre- and post- independence ferment in art that crytallised into what we can today describe as the contemporary and modern Nigeria Art. The workshop series which he started, created a revolution that gave birth to what is now known all over the art world today as Osogbo School. As a great teacher, mentor and role model, he helped develop artistic freedom, drew our attention to Nigerian values by recourse to our past and traditions as well as to look beyond our immediate environment for inspiration. His passion for and invovlement in many areas of the arts has within his lifetime changed the town of Oshogbo into a Mecca for lovers of art.
Ulli Beier had
several attributes, but in this brief tribute I will pay attention to
his role as a great art teacher and a role model in the development of
the arts and also as a vital instrument in the upgrading of a community
- the Oshogbo community - into a tourism centre of world renown. The
workshops he organised in Ibadan, Oshogbo and Ile -Ife, not only
realigned my area of specialisation as an artist but also inspired me
towards the development of an informal educational art outfit, which is
the Harmattan workshop series of Agbarha-Otor in, Delta State, Nigeria.
I attended three
of the art workshops he initiated and organised in the 60s and 70s. The
first was at Adamasingba quarters, Ibadan in 1961. It was held at Mbari
Artists and Writers club. Julian Bainet stood in for Amancia Guerdes,
the South African Architect who could not travel to Nigeria. In that
workshop there was a printmaking session but the main thrust was to
develop our freedom in the use of found materials: metals, cement,
building wire, etc.
But what I later
realised to be my greatest benefit at the workshop was working with
artists of different stages of development on the same project in the
same classrooom. In the workshop was Akinola Lasekan who even then was
already very well known as an accomplished artist. Also, I met Roland
Abiodun who would later become a great scholar.
The second Ulli
Beier workshop I attended came three years later in 1964 at Osogbo. It
was on printmaking for which Professor Ru Van Rossen, a renowned
printmaker from Tilburg University in Holland, was director. The class
was not a big one. It included Jimoh Akolo and Irein Wangboje who were
colleagues in the art school at Zaria. Other participants in that
workshop included Twin Seven-Seven, Jimoh Buraimoh, Muraina Oyelami,
Rufus Ogundele and a few others who had attended earlier Oshogbo
workshops under Georgina Beier, Ulli's wife.
Through Ru Van
Rossen's teaching and demonstrations and the examples of his prints
that I saw, I realised that printmaking was a major area of art
specialisation. That changed my direction from painting to which I was
lured through peer pressure at the Art School in Zaria. Following that
exposure, and equipped with materials given to me by Ulli, I launched
into printmaking experiments with feverish passion and great
determination which later on resulted in innovations and breakthroughs
for me.
I use the word
experiments because Ru made us understand from the workshop that
printmaking can be very scientific and adventrous, involving the use of
chemicals, tools and heavy equipment, as obtained in factories.
After attending
the two workshops, Ulli watched my progress with satisfaction and as a
way of motivation, he invited me to assist Ru in the Ori Olokun wokshop
held at Ile-Ife around 1973. By this time Ulli had moved from Osogbo to
Ife as the Director of the Institute of African Studies of the
University of Ife, now the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile -Ife. In
that capacity, Ulli offered me the post of Assistant Research Fellow at
the Institute, Unfortunately I could not take it because my movement to
Ife would retard the building up of an artistic audience which I
already started in Lagos.
Ulli drew our
attention to materials and themes around us - in beadworks, beaten
metal, wood, clay, folklore, stones, traditional motifs, etc. These
became the foundation for the great art pieces by Twin Seven-Seven,
Jimoh Buraimoh, Asiru Olatunde, Nike Okundaiye, Rufus Ogundele, Muraina
Oyelami and my metal foil plastograph.
Ulli did not stop
with organising workshops. He monitored the progress of the artists in
order to encourage them further. He would sometimes buy some of the art
works produced at the workshops or at the artists' studios and exhibit
them in Nigeria or abroad, accompanying the pieces with literature
which would introduce the artists and explain the pieces. The Goethe
Institute, the cultural arm of the Germany embassy in Lagos, cooperated
with Ulli Beier, who was a German, to showcase our art regularly.
Next, Ulli
encouraged his friends and art patrons to establish galleries to help
sell artworks, particularly those produced by the workshop alumni.
First amongst them was the Mbari Artists and Writer's Club of which he
was a co-founder, followed by the Mbari Mbayo at Oshogbo. Next was
Mbari Art Gallery, opened by Tayo Aiyegbusi on the ground floor of his
studio at Jibowu near Ikorodu Road, Lagos.
Jean Kennedy and
her husband Dick Wolford who worked for USAID, were themselves artists
and friends to Ulli. They turned their sitting room in McEwen Road,
Ikoyi to an art gallery where they marketed products of the Osogbo
artists. We called the gallery the ‘Thursday Show' because it took
place once a week for only two hours every Thursday.
My works naturally
were included but the gallery also exhibited works of other Lagos-based
artists like David Dale who were never part of the workshops. The
Thursday Show gave me a financial breakthrough and a great impetus to
continue my practice as an artist. This gave me the confidence to
continue in my practice and I never looked back. Other expatriate
families, one after the other, carried on the tradition after the
Wolfords left Nigeria.
Ulli's promotion
did not end with Ibadan, Osogbo, Ife and Lagos. He inspired the Mbari
Club which was set up by Uche Okeke in Enugu. Also, he encouraged Ovia
Idah to open a gallery in his house on the moat at beginning of Ekewan
Road, near the Oba's market in Benin City. Ulli carried the crusade to
Germany, the Iwalewa Haus Centre, which he set up there, did a lot to
propagate Osogbo and other Nigerian artworks.
Ulli was totally
committed to the development of arts. He cooperated with his wife
Georgina in the workshops and with Susanne Wenger for the development
of Osun shrines; also with Duro Ladipo for theatre, and was involved
with various publications about African artists and culture in Black
Orpheus. All these experiences prepared me for other workshops,
residences and exhibitions abroad in Canada, India, the United States
of America, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe.
And so, when I
started the Harmattan Worshop at Agbarha-Otor, Delta State in 1998, all
the credit went to Ulli as one who inspired me to start it. It is his
legacy that I am now propagating. The 13th edition of the Harmattan
Workshop will end in August 2011 and like the previous workshops we
organised, during the induction ceremonies for participants, the name
Ulli Beier always comes up as the inspiration behind the project. This
has been the practice since inception.
Following the
example of Ulli's workshops, the Harmattan Workshop has proved to be a
forum where Nigerian, African as well as artists from other parts of
the world gather in many sessions every year to hone their skills,
share ideas and network among themselves. The workshop has had
participants from Canada, France, U.S.A, Benin Republic, Togo and
Belgium. The works from the workshops, like Ulli workshops, have been
exhibited widely within the country and have featured in the landmark
events like the Nigerian Golden Jubilee exhibition at Abuja. Plans are
underway to exhibit works from Harmattan Workshop at the School of
Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. All these
artistic activities are gradually helping to upgrade the status of the
quiet, sleepy town of Agbarha-Otor where the workshop is situated. We
hope it will be like Osogbo someday.
Ulli Beier gave a
people - the Oshogbo people, nay, the people of Nigeria, pride in their
cultural heritage. He came and awakened us to artistic and cultural
consciousness. He laid the foundation that earned Oshogbo the World
Heritage status it enjoys today.
Ulli Beier
affected my life and a host of other artists whose talents would have
remained dormant. He gave us wealth and international recognition. His
life and passion for the arts did not only develop the art profession
and raised the status of Osogbo, it also proved that the arts in its
total application is a potential tool for the growth of any nation. May
Ulli Beier's contributions and legacies which he bequeathed long endure.
Master printmaker, Bruce Onobrakpeya, delivered this paper at the
celebration of Ulli Beier's life and works, held at the Centre for
Black Culture and International Understanding in Osogbo, Osun State, on
July 2
