Footnotes

Provenance
Acquired at a London Exhibition in 1951;
A private collection.

This sculpture was most likely carved by Enwonwu in the late 1940's / 1950, after his hugely successful exhibition and lecture tour of the United States in 1950.

On the label on to the base of this sculpture, the words 'shell petrol' are decipherable. Therefore, it is our extremely likely that this work was in the possession of Shell Petroleum and in particular, Mr. Lionel Harford.

Harford was a pivotal figure in the career of Ben Enwonwu, acting as his benefactor and assisting him in organising his first solo exhibition at the Exhibition Centre, in Lagos in 1942 / 1943, leading to his scholarship to study in the United Kingdom in 1945 (sponsored in part by Shell Petroleum). A strong bond was formed between the two men with Enwonwu referring to Harford affectionately in his countless letters to him as "My Dear Sir". It was clear that Harford's admiration for the artists technique was well known, evidenced in a letter from Edward B Mayne C.B.E to Lionel Harford in 1956:

"Dear Lionel,

During the last few years of your service in the West Africa Department there stood in your office a wood carving by Ben Enwonwu of two men fighting in a canoe.

I believe that you admired this piece of work and have the pleasure, on behalf of Shell, in asking you to accept it as a small but lasting souvenir of you association with the management of the Company's affairs in West Africa."

Lionel Harford worked for Shell in West Africa during the second world war. His war efforts pre-date the discovery of commercial quantities of oil in the region in 1956.

The present work is compositionally reminiscent of Rodin's masterpiece The Thinker with each figures head resting on their clench fists, deep in thought. It could be said that Enwonwu's western education under Kenneth Murray in Ibadan, at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, and the Ruskin School in Oxford exposed and inspired him to the Western Old Masters and informed his work.

The label on this work indicates that it was exhibited in 1951. While there is no record of a London exhibition in 1951 for Ben Enwonwu's works, the year is bookended by an exhibition in 1950 at the Berkley Galleries, and an exhibition in 1952 at the Gallerie Apollinaire.