Much has been written about the extraordinary impact of African sculpture upon 20th century European art. Although by the turn of the 19th century artists like Derain, Vlaminck, Matisse and Braque were all drawing inspiration from non-Western art, it is Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon of 1907 which is the best known example of a 20th century painting showing the direct influence of African sculpture, particularly masks, on progressive artists of the time. It has long been customary to refer to this movement as Primitivism, a term which describes Western reaction to so-called ‘tribal arts’, rather than non-Western art itself. In the words of William Rubin, ‘Primitivism is thus an aspect of the history of modern art, not of tribal art.’(1)

It is ironic that at the very time when wood sculpture from the African and Pacific colonies of France, Britain, Belgium and other European countries began to inspire Western artists to move away from the literal interpretation of nature, local artistic expression was undergoing profound change in the colonies themselves. Critics in Paris, London, Brussels and elsewhere, having appreciated and welcomed the liberating influence of non-Western sculpture on European art, tended to view outside influences, such as colonialism, on African art as cataclysmic and ultimately negative. New works of African art were seen as travesties of masks and figures produced before missionary and colonial intervention, degenerate versions of the old pieces which by now had been mostly swept away into ethnological museums throughout the world. It was conveniently overlooked that, like any great tradition, African art had always moved with the times, reflecting a wide variety of foreign influences over long periods.

Cement sculptures created by the notable Sunday Jack Akpan (b.1940) of Ikot Obio Offong, near Uyo in southeast Nigeria, demonstrate some of the many ways in which art and culture combine with cataclysmic force to produce a growing portfolio of artistic styles and even reinscribe aesthetic values and social practices in pre- and post-colonial worlds. Importantly though, we need to carefully examine which aesthetic practices they have replaced in order to reflect on their significance today.

Akpan’s cement sculptures began primarily with the need to commemorate revered ancestors among the Ibibio and Annang peoples occupying the Palm Belt of southeast Nigeria. Compared to contemporary representations of the dead, ancestral shrines were less influenced by realism. Throughout much of the 20th century, non-Christian peoples living in the Ibibio and Annang area favoured a special patchwork and appliqué cotton cloth, that was hung inside the ngwomo (a shrine of bamboo sticks and palm mats for a deceased male elder). Appliqué panels were generally furbished with a depiction of the deceased person at the left, usually wearing a woollen cap indicating initiation into the warrior’s association, ebie-owo in Annang, Ekong in Ibibio. To the right of the representation of the deceased were sewn other figures: frequently that of a first wife, daughter, or son, all with details signifying particular social status. Shrines could be distinguished by social and familial symbols that embody both individual and collective histories.

Membership of the Ekong society may be indicated by the depiction of its special musical instrument, the conical metal bell. Despite the fact that British colonialism and missionary activity did not effectively penetrate the heartland of Ibibio and Annang country until the early years of the 20th century, the mounting of shrine cloths appears to have died out by the 1990s. But, what this example shows is that a wealth of visual representation pre-existed the arrival of Western materials and structured modes of perception.

Indicative of this change in artistic production is the dramatic change in historical circumstances. Since the end of World War I, cement monuments that commemorate the Christian dead have been erected among the Ibibio and Annang people, after cement first became available as a construction material. The first sculpture was in the form of a simple cross. A little later, figurative cement sculpture for both deceased men and women appeared, in the form of seated or standing figures placed beneath a miniature house roof, often on a pedestal. Poses were rigid, the figures shown facing to the front. Inscriptions giving details of the dead person and even the date and cost of the funeral were rendered either in Efik or in English. Such memorials were placed by the roadside near the settlement where the person had lived, as the dead tended to be interred at his or her former home.

Over a period of time, a great number of these memorials accumulated at certain sites. On the eve of Nigerian independence Africanist scholar, Ulli Beier wrote that ‘the whole of the Ibibio country today looks like a vast open-air sculpture exhibition.’(2) It was during this time in the 1960s that a young Ibibio bricklayer, Sunday Jack Akpan began making life-size funerary figures of a more naturalistic kind. Working from photographs provided by relatives of the deceased he began creating accurate representations of the dead for a growing stream of clients. He cast the figures in rough sand moulds reinforced with steel rods, afterwards cementing the parts together and over-modelling by hand. After completion, sculptures were given an undercoat, then decorator’s gloss paint was applied with a brush. Textile motifs were often stencilled; sometimes an insecticide-spraying device was employed.

As time went by Akpan’s mastery of anatomical and clothing details became unsurpassed in the area and his Natural Authentic Sculptor studio on the Uyo-Nung Udoe road grew in fame. After having spent a long time with Akpan and having commissioned him to make a number of pieces for the National Museum at Oron, situated on the west bank of the Cross River estuary, the following question was posed: ‘Akpan’s message is self-evident to anybody who looks at his roadside masterpieces in the Ibibio ‘bush’ but will it be noticed in wider circles?’.(3) This question was a far from rhetorical one, for in the 1970s, although many Western artists and connoisseurs had come to appreciate traditional African wood sculpture, very few took seriously contemporary African artistic expression created for a local market, especially created from imported materials. As in the early part of the 20th century, African art was perceived as suffering from a form of cultural contamination rather than transformative capacities.

After my return visit to Akpan’s studio at Ikot Ohio Offong in 1992, it was noted that with business booming and with several apprentices at work, he now produced all of the following types of work: figurative art and gravestones for memorial purposes; commercial art for businesses; religious art, especially the Corpus Christi for churches and seminaries; ‘Big Man’ art for personal display by wealthy patrons, usually in the form of gigantic busts; experimental art for self promotion and competitions including animal figures. By this time, Akpan was not only producing for a Nigerian audience. In 1992, the Horniman Museum in southeast London acquired a seated woman and a recumbent lion by Sunday Akpan, together with a seated man and a crawling snail by Aneidi Akpan. These were originally exhibited at the Institute for Overseas Relations in Stuttgart in 1988. In 1999, minus the snail, they were placed on display in the African Worlds gallery at the Horniman and in 2001 Akpan’s work was exhibited at the 49th Venice Biennale. The diversity of Akpan’s sculptures demonstrates a continuation of social practices and a desire to both imagine and realise a growing variety of social identities.

Photographs by Jull Salmons and Keith Nicklin.