Uche Okeke

Private collection, acquired directly from the artist

Thence by descent

Acquired from the above by the current owner

"The year 1962, when Uche Okeke was in Germany, training at the Franz Meyer studio, was perhaps the most productive year in his career. Pen and ink drawings gave way to the powerful ink and brush Munich Suite that marked the expressive height of the Uli experiments. The German experience gave a certain cosmopolitan openness to Okeke's themes and subjects ranged from madmen and the curly haired girls of Munich to Birds in Flight and Time Bird, a Brancusi consciousness, perhaps." (P. Chike Dike, Pat Oyelola, The Zaria Art Society: A New Consciousness, 1998, p.132)

This exquisite gouache on paper is a seminal work from Uche Okeke's pivotal period in Munich, created during the artist's transformative sojourn in West Germany. Executed in 1962, Head of a Girl exemplifies Okeke's groundbreaking synthesis of Igbo uli aesthetics with modernist sensibilities.

The work showcases Okeke's masterful adaptation of the uli technique, a traditional Igbo art form characterised by fluid, linear designs. Here, the artist employs quick-drying gouache with the deftness of ink, creating sinuous, curvilinear strokes that coalesce into the abstracted form of a girl's head. This piece marks a significant departure from Okeke's earlier style, demonstrating a freer, more expressive approach that would come to define his mature work.

Head of a Girl was created during Okeke's German federal scholarship, where he was attached to Franz Mayer, Hofkunstanstalt in Munich. This period of immersion in European art and culture profoundly influenced Okeke's artistic vision, yet he remained deeply connected to his Nigerian roots. The result is a work that is both universal and deeply personal, embodying Okeke's artistic credo of "blending diverse culture types,/ the cream of the native kind/ adaptable alien types."

This piece is part of a larger body of work produced in Germany, including the celebrated Munich Suite, which drew heavily on Nigerian themes. It represents a crucial moment in Okeke's artistic evolution, where his engagement with uli became fully realised. The impact of this traditional Igbo art form on Okeke's painting from 1962 is significant, as evidenced by the fluid, spiralling forms characteristic of uli drawing and painting.

Head of a Girl is not merely a portrait; it is a visual manifesto of Okeke's artistic ideology and a cornerstone of modern Nigerian art. Its acquisition presents a rare opportunity to own a piece of African modernist history, created at the nexus of tradition and innovation.

Bibliography

P. Chike Dike, Pat Oyelola, The Zaria Art Society: A New Consciousness, 1998

C. Okeke-Agulu, 'Nationalism and the Rhetoric o# Modernism in Nigeria The Art of Uche Okeke and Demos Nwoko, 1960- 1968', African Arts, Vol. 39, No. 1, 2006

S. Ottenberg, New Traditions from Nigeria: Seven Artists of the Nsukka Group, 1997