A palette unlike anything in the west': Ben Okri, Yinka Shonibare and more on how Nigerian art revived Britain's cultural landscape

"Some primal energy was unleashed among Nigerian artists in the years leading up to independence. The century-long reign of colonialism was nearing its end and the people of Nigeria, with its over 300 tribes, its ebullient energy, were poised for a new future in which they would determine the shape and context of their lives. And the people who most articulated that double position, that paradox of modernity and tradition, were artists in all their stripes."

"Artists across the country, in constant dialogue with one another, created works that evoked their traditions but in a contemporary context. Artists such as Yusuf Grillo in the north, Bruce Onobrakpeya from the midwest, Ben Enwonwu from the east and Twins Seven Seven from the west were remaking the dream of art in a rigorously Nigerian context. The effect of the works created by the Zaria Art Society, the generation that congregated in Lagos and exhibited all over the world, was profound."

Nigerian artists in the years before independence blended tradition and modernity to forge a distinct national modernism. They reworked indigenous myths, rituals, masquerades and ancestral presences alongside everyday subjects like dancing figures, portraits and landscapes, using a unique palette and visual language divergent from Western conventions. The Zaria Art Society and Lagos-based generation exhibited globally, connecting ancient forms to contemporary art while engaging world art currents, including responses to cubism viewed as reclaiming African sources. Nigerian modernism also appeared in the novel, with works by Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Amos Tutuola reflecting similar tensions between tradition and modern life.

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