Obiora Udechukwu: Line, Image, Text

Description

With more than 600 images, this is primarily an art book, with priority given to the reproduction of high quality images selected from the artist's sketch books dating from 1963 to the present. Even so, the book includes contextual essays and interviews with the artist by the author, as well as a timeline and comprehensive bibliography of the artist. Udechukwu, who in 1976 was described by the scholar Pat Oyelola as "master of the sensitive line," is best known for his development of a style of drawing and painting inspired by Igbo Uli body drawing and mural, following the experiments of his teacher Uche Okeke (1933-2016) in the early 1960s. But Udechukwu's incomparable draughtsmanship and pictorial design sensibility led to him to develop drawings and paintings that not only influenced generations of artists associated with the Nsukka School in Nigeria, but also secured his place as one of the most consequential Nigerian artists of the 20th century. Obiora Udechukwu (b. 1946), along with Uche Okeke and El Anatsui were for many years the leading figures of the Nsukka School of artists based at the University of Nigeria

Chika Okeke-Agulu is an artist, poet, curator and Associate Professor of Art History in the Department of Art & Archaeology and the Department for African American Studies at Princeton University.