
Sofia Vellano Rubin
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Sold for £35,840 inc. premium
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Provenance
The estate of the artist;
Bonhams sale, London, May 2015, Africa Now- Modern Africa, Lot 39;
A private collection.
Literature
O. Oguibe, Uzo Egonu: An African Artist in the West, (Kala, London: 1995), pp. 103-114,(illustrated p. 100.).
Argued by Olu Oguibe as 'a masterpiece in the depiction of conflict as well as perhaps one of the artist's finest works'(Oguibe, p. 104), Mother and Child is unavoidably an exquisite piece in both aesthetic and historical value within the artist's oeuvre.
Contextually, this subject matter aligns with the artist's output between the years of 1966-67. Speaking on his mindset in 1966 in reference to another painting by the artist, Spiritual Protection in which a mother cradles her baby whilst being led away on a horse. Egonu responds to the physical danger he was witnessing in the world:
"What was in my mind was flight. By this I mean an action which one takes in order to protect oneself from physical danger. It is happening too much and too frequently in different parts of the world. It happened yesterday, it is happening today, and it will happen tomorrow. There is no need for wishful thinking nor to build castles in the sky by dreaming of the day when there will be tranquillity and peace in the world. We have to live with the evil of war." (Uzo Egonu, Reflections of Uzo Egonu, 3:8-9, (1989, online publication June 2008) p, 179.
This move from the theoretical makes this present work a rare extension of the artist's skillset. In response to the looming war, posing as an omen and reminder of humanitarian necessity in the face of approaching conflict that would be the war in Nigeria. The work is a demonstration of the artist offering literal representations of care and protection.