Tate Modern Spotlights Art Revolution in ‘Nigerian Modernism’ Exhibition

This October, Tate Modern will open its doors to a groundbreaking exhibition that promises to reignite debates about Africa’s place in global art history and provoke a vital question about Nigerian Modernism. 

Titled “Nigerian Modernism”, the major survey, running from 8 October 2025 to 10 May 2026 at Tate Modern, Bankside, SE1 9TG, brings together over 50 artists whose work redefined modern art in Nigeria and across the African continent. Opening daily from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, the exhibition that showcases sculpture, painting to poetry, and textiles, and creative resistance, is anchored on the cultural surge that accompanied Nigeria’s independence from British colonial rule in 1960.   

On display are masterpieces by seminal figures such as Ben Enwonwu MBE, Ladi Kwali, Uzo Egonu, and El Anatsui. These artists, among others, forged a visual language rooted in tradition yet radically modern, merging ancestral knowledge with political urgency to assert a new African identity. The exhibition captures a dynamic moment when art became a tool of self-definition, protest, and pride.

But Nigerian Modernism is more than a retrospective of bold aesthetics. The show spotlights intellectual powerhouses like the Zaria Art Society and the Mbari Artists’ and Writers’ Club that fostered collaboration, experimentation, and critical dialogue. These groups linked Nigerian cities like Zaria, Lagos, Ibadan, and Enugu to global art capitals like London, Munich, and Paris, forming transnational circuits that defied colonial hierarchies and centered African expression.

The exhibition opens with the 1940s, a decade shaped by mounting demands for decolonisation across Africa. Many Nigerian artists were educated in Europe, where they mastered academic techniques even as they discovered how deeply Western modernism was indebted to African art, often without attribution. What emerged was a generation of Nigerian modernists negotiating their identity between tradition and modernity, colonial imposition and creative sovereignty.

Aina Onabolu pioneered modern portraiture in Lagos, painting elite subjects with a figurative style that rejected exoticism. Akinola Lasekan used myth and history to tell Yoruba stories in vivid visual form. Ben Enwonwu, trained at the Slade School in London, integrated Igbo sculptural influences into his work, reclaiming the elegance and dignity of Blackness on canvas and in bronze. Ladi Kwali, meanwhile, revolutionised ceramics, blending Gwari traditions with European methods she learned under Michael Cardew in Abuja to create pieces that were both timeless and politically resonant.

They reflect a moment when Nigerian artists redefined modernism on their terms, infusing it with cultural memory, protest, and self-determination. Every brushstroke, clay form, and woven thread became a medium of resistance.

In reclaiming these artists and movements, Nigerian Modernism challenges the marginalisation of African art in the grand narrative of global modernism. It doesn’t ask for inclusion—it asserts presence. At a time when museums are being pushed to decolonise and revise their canons, this exhibition feels not only timely but necessary.

Curated by Osei Bonsu, Curator of International Art at Tate Modern, and Bilal Akkouche, Assistant Curator, the show has been organised in partnership with Access Holdings and Coronation Group, with support from the Ford Foundation, the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and others.

Whether you’re a scholar, student, or simply curious about the forces that shaped African art, Nigerian Modernism is a long-overdue recognition of the artists who didn’t just participate in modernism but redefined it. Tickets can be obtained at tate.org.uk  or call +44 (0)20 7887 8888. It’s free for Members and £5 for ages 16–25 with Tate Collective.