By
Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 20 April)
Alan Donovan
had been fascinated with Africa since childhood.
“My first
scrapbook which I made at age 4 was all about Africa. It was mostly about
animals,” says the man who’s now celebrating 50 years of Oshogbo art and
artists with an exhibition at the Nairobi Gallery opening May 1st.
Alan was
meant to complete that celebration last October during the national Nigeria Day
last October 1st, but he was already unwell. His condition
deteriorated from then until early this year when miraculously, he began to
recover and is now on the mend.
So what if
he’s now celebrating 50 years plus one since he first stepped foot on African
soil, in July 1967.
“I came
initially as a food relief worker during the Nigeria-Biafran war. I was lucky
since I was the last American admitted to the Nigeria Desk [of the US State
Department] before it was shut down due to the war,” he adds.
He admits
his work with USAID in Biafra was depressing. But it wasn’t long after his
arrival that he made his way to Oshogbo where he found a thriving village of
artists and artisans, many of whom had worked in theatre for the so-called ‘thunder
king’, the iconic Nigerian playwright, actor, director and musicologist Duro
Ladipo who coincidentally is currently being celebrated in Nigeria since he
died just 40 years ago in Ibadan, Oyo state at aged 45 years.
Some of the
young artists that Alan met at Oshogbo were by then either dancers, actors, electricians,
sign painters or set designers for Duro’s theatre.
The art of
ten of those ‘young artists’ (who – apart from three who passed on -- are, like
Donovan 51 years older now) are part of the ’50 Years of Oshogbo: the Art and
the Artists’ exhibition that Alan assisted in assembling. But the show’s
content has actually been curated by one of the ten, the brilliant Batik
artist, Nike Okundaye (formerly Nike Seven Seven).
Nike founded
and runs the largest art gallery and artists workshop in all of Nigeria at
Oshogbo. She’s been a close friend of Alan since those early days after she
became the third wife of renowned Nigerian artist-musician and prodigious
polygamist, the late Twins Seven Seven, whose art is also in the exhibition.
Alan has
long been a fan of Nike’s batik art and has given her no less than seven
exhibitions of her own when he still had the African Heritage Pan African
Gallery which he founded with the late former Kenya Vice President Joseph
Murumbi back in 1971. In fact, so close are Alan and Nike that she was the only
one out of the seven artists still living whose works are being exhibited who
came across the continent last October to celebrate her country’s national day
in Kenya with Alan. And while she won’t be able to return for the May 1st
opening, Nike has already booked him a round trip ticket to come visit her
gallery in Oshogbo when he is fully back on his feet.
The three who
died are Twins Seven Seven, Asiru Olatunde and Rufus Ogundele. The other seven
are Asiru’s son, Y. Folorunsho, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Muraina Oyelami, Bisi
Fabunmi, Jacob Afolabi, Jimoh Buraimoh, and of course Nike.
Alan admits
he is sentimental about his experiences in Oshogbo. “It was there that I was
first introduced to contemporary African art,” he tells BD. “It was there that
I bought my first painting by an African artist. It was by Muraina Oyelami,”
whose art has subsequently been exhibited everywhere from the Smithsonion
Museum of African Art to the IWALEWA-Haus in Germany.
Alan’s
fascination for Africa and African art wasn’t satisfied during his early years
in the US. He studied African art at UCLA, “but that was all pre-colonial African
art,” he says. “I even took a correspondence course (like an early online
course) in African art from Boston University, but it focused on Congolese art
and covered nothing contemporary.”
So coming to
Oshogbo was like the sunshine breaking through misty days when Alan couldn’t
see the reality of contemporary African art. He said it was there that he first
discovered “the inner soul” and source of creativity in Africa. It made such a
profound impression on him that he’s been hung up on it ever since as one will
easily see if they get to Alan’s African Heritage House in Mlolongo. Or if they
get to the Nairobi Gallery from May 1st.
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