The last of the troubadors: Adieu, Lamidi Fakeye

Abstract

Post colonial discussions of African art initially centred on capturing the essence of traditional African arts alongside a new contemporary art that was practically a product of colonial circumstances. Growing side by side these.were to all intents and purposes, other artistic initiatives fashioned after western cultural parameters. Sortie of the new initiatives included attempts to study, understand and as much as possible retain traditional elements, that had more or less been deliberately relegated as a result of missionary colonial contact. And therefore here lies the huge historical contradiction, for it is the same missionary force that later sought to encourage, foster and allow the use of traditional images in the churches. As a result, local and outside initiatives around that time paid some attention to investigating the traditional arts. In doing this and against the background that African wood sculptures were incontrovertibly the best and most widespread of traditional arts to reach the west, the efforts of the Catholic mission to encourage and propagate African images in its churches led to the inadvertent discovery of one of Africa’s greatest and most prolific woodcarvers, in Nigeria, Lamidi Fakeye