Footnotes

Provenance
The collection of Mr Fagg, most likely Bernard;
A private collection.

It was around the time of this painting's execution that Enwonwu held an exhibition in Paris (1952) which was attended by Richard Wright, an initiator of The Harlem Renaissance culture in Paris. This movement represented the rebirth of African American culture and combatted racism. Wright, a novelist, protested the treatment of black people and communities through literature. Enwonwu took great influence from his fellow intellectuals and championed the Negritude ideology which embodied a revitalisation of the African force in the face of colonialism.

The present work is distinctly unique in comparison to the artist's wider oeuvre. Distinctly abstracted and with figures reminiscent of Enwonwu's Negritude series, the artist has compositionally arranged the figures to present male figures in discussion and female figures in the background. Distinguished by genitalia, it seems that the female figures are excluded from the conversation. While Enwonwu's oeuvre predominantly features women or the female form as the main muse of his works, this work presents us with a rare occasion that men are the finite subject at the centre of the piece.

As the inscription on the back of the stretcher indicates, the present work was at one time in the possession of Mr Fagg. While it is unclear if that was Bernard or William, given his presence in and great appreciation for Nigeria, one can assume that the inscription refers to Bernard. Bernard Fagg was a British archaeologist and museum curator who excavated the terracotta figurines of Nok culture beginning in 1944. He later founded the National Museum in Jos in 1952, the first public museum in Nigeria.

Bibliography
Historical Archaeology in Nigeria edited by Kit W. Wesler, (US: African World Press, 1998)
Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Ben Enwonwu: The Making of an African Modernist, (Rochester, NY: 2008)