Chief Lady Afi Ekong in the Art Historical Account of Modern Nigerian Art

Abstract

This paper examines the career profile and contributions of a foremost female African Artist. Chief Lady Constance Afiong Ekong. The first female Nigerian artist to be academically trained. She was born in 1930 and died in 2009. She trained at Technical College in Oxford, The Saint Martin School of Fine Arts and Central School of Arts in Holborn and specialized in painting. A pioneer of modern Nigerian art whose contributions were broad based which comprised of solo and group exhibitions. She was the first female artist to exhibit in Nigerian in 1958, and also the first to internationalize her works. Administratively, she was the Art Manager to the National Council for Arts in Nigeria which gave art visibility. Viewing her paintings is like attending a history lesson which highlights her inspirations from traditional sources, and the documentation of colonial Lagos as visual statements of the growth and development of Nigeria as a nation. The paper concludes that she had positively contributed to the development of modern Nigerian art and given intellectual support to the unheard creative voices of the women. It is therefore recommended that the Federal Government should stop playing politics with the implementation of the National Endowment Fund for the Arts.