The ‘African Mona Lisa’ breaks record
At Bonhams in London last week, an important rediscovered portrait of an African princess by the Nigerian artist Ben Enwonwu (1921-1994) grabbed the headlines, selling for a record £1.2million. The 1974 painting Tutu, which has an almost mythical status in Nigeria where it is thought of as the African Mona Lisa, had not been seen for decades.
Like Picasso in the Impressionist sales, Enwonwu dominates the African sales. At Bonhams, 21 works by him sold for £1.6million, or 82per cent of the total. But while prices for Enwonwu are rising, the same is not true for other contemporary African artists. A group of six paintings sold by leading African art collector Jean Pigozzi at Sotheby’s in 1999 met with mixed results at the Bonhams sale. Two showed a modest increase, but the others either made a loss or were unsold.
Overall, the sale, Bonhams’ fifth devoted to Modern and Contemporary African art, made almost £2million. Not quite the best yet, but well above estimate.
Is it indicative of a boom in contemporary African art? Charles Saatchi is hoping so, putting 18 works from his collection into Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary African art sale later this month. Estimates for these pieces range from £3,000 to £35,000 for a stitched coal -sack work (a metaphor for slave labour) by Ibrahim Mahama, an artist who attracted international attention at the Venice Biennale three years ago.
The green shoots of a boom were spotted in this column almost 10 years ago. Since then, galleries specialising in contemporary African art have sprung up both in London and elsewhere, and market infrastructure has begun developing alongside.
Last week, the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, which began in London in 2012 and expanded to New York in 2015, opened in Marrakesh, where it coincided with the opening of a museum for contemporary African art.
At 1-54, Toby Clarke’s Vigo Gallery, based in Mayfair, sold works by relatively established artists such as Ibrahim El-salahi (well represented in Tate’s collection) and Hassan Hajjaj for between £10,000 and £36,000 but, otherwise, said Clarke, “it is more like an awakening of awareness than a boom”. Like all emerging markets, then, African art is still feeling its way.