Enwonwu remained connected to his Nigerian roots, however, and prioritized them in his work, Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, an art historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Enwonwu’s biographer, tells CNN’s Suyin Haynes.
“He foregrounded African cultural registers in his work,” Ogbechie says. “He was very insistent on the fact that if Monet could paint church facades and hay bales and water lilies and be considered a modern artist, there was no reason why he couldn’t paint masquerades and African market scenes and have them received in the same manner.”
