Decolonising Nigerian Modernism: Ben Enwonwu’s ‘Identity in Politics’

The personal archive of the celebrated Nigerian modernist painter Ben Enwonwu (1917–1994) reveals his understanding of the effects of colonialism on his own artistic and political identity, and his thoughts on the role artists should play in the anticolonial struggle. This paper brings together Enwonwu’s thinking with that of more contemporary theorists to examine the connections between modernism, nationalism and decolonisation in the writing of Nigerian art history.