– Positive image –
Ten years ago, Enwonwu’s works sold for several hundred dollars but are now fetching hundreds of thousands at auction.
Nevertheless, said Coventry, his work “is still massively under-valued, which is quite unique for an artist who was so accomplished during his own lifetime”.
Femi Lijadu is one of several art collectors who will make the trip from Lagos to London for the auction on May 20 and has already pinpointed Nigerian works “at affordable prices”.
He will be in the British capital because he is proud of the image the major artists portray of his country.
Lijadu, a corporate lawyer, has some 500 pieces in his collection and remembers the time he began earning a living in the 1980s and buying pictures by the “Grand Masters” of Nigeria.
“At the time we dreamt of the day where the world would finally start to take notice of Nigerian and African art in general,” he remembered with a smile.
Judging by the scale of the auction, that day has arrived.
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