Artist Geoffrey Nwogu at work on traditional Mbari figures in the Great Hall of the California Academy of Sciences, photograph by Robin Quarrier

Project Title:  Mbari Sculpture
Recipient Organization:  California Academy of Sciences
Lead Artist:   Geoffrey Nwogu
Genre and Date Awarded:  Traditional Arts, June 2001
To Be Presented:   March 2002

Collaborating with the California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco’s natural history museum), Nigerian sculptor Geoffrey Nwogu created a traditional Igbo "mbari"—a sculptural installation consisting of a family of three deity figures positioned on a platform with a backdrop.  Made of mud clay fashioned over wooden armatures, the finished work was a replica of a typical mbari house complex, built as an offering to the gods as part of the ritual customs practiced in a handful of small villages in southeastern Nigeria. The term mbari means many things—a beautiful work of art, a process of spiritual renewal, and a social occasion that unites a village in feasting and celebration.  An unusual, highly localized art form, mbari previously has received scant attention from the outside world.

In Owerri Igbo villages, the mbari custom is deeply embedded in their belief system.  A community decides to build a mbari house full of sculpted earthen figures for a specific reason:  to reverse a period of hardship; as a “payment” to thank the gods; or as a prayer for the bestowal of further benefits. The clay figures are not typical of Igbo art in general, which is best known in the West for its woodcarvings.

In Nigeria, the mbari artist is sequestered behind a walled enclosure while creating mbari, and uses special clay collected from termite hills to form the structure and figures.  Imagery includes deities, ancestor spirits, animals from myths and legend, and humorous genre scenes from daily life.  Within the Igbo aesthetic tradition, artists can improvise and invent new forms.  Nwogu wrote: “Mbari is a community project that involves the creation of a houseful of earthen sculptures satirizing the community as homage to the ancestors.  The main subject is the community beginning at the nucleus—the family—and spanning out to the village.  The family unit is therefore the central focus of the whole arrangement.”  He chose to create a family of three mud figures—the god Amadioha, his wife Ala, and their baby, the harvest deity Ahianjoku. The figures were positioned in rigid, formal poses, all front facing and symmetrically arranged, according to stylistic rules.  Customarily, once a  mbari offering is publicly presented, its fundamental function has been fulfilled and it is no longer charged with spiritual power.  The house and figures are left to the elements, to gradually erode and disintegrate.

The San Francisco mbari project was created over a three-month period in a prominent place in the Academy’s Cowell Hall.  The event attracted an audience of more than 250,000 people, including many of Nigerian descent.  The collaboration was structured as an extended artist’s residency, with the artist working four days per week during regular museum hours.  In creating mbari out of its original cultural context, one of the challenges Nwogu faced was finding the appropriate medium.  He worked with commercial clay, which dried too quickly and cracked in the warm interior of the museum.  A visitor watching him at work helped solve the problem by recommending that he mix fibrous material into the clay—akin to the Native American practice of mixing straw with adobe to form bricks.  The solution worked and the artist achieved a beautiful finish to the completed pieces.

June Anderson, a staff member of the museum’s Anthropology Dept., supervised the project, assisted by Robin Quarrier, a student intern from Dartmouth College, who served as a docent, answering visitors’ questions and documenting the process. The artist wrote: “The interaction with the public was the most inspiring aspect of the project.  I learned a lot from them and built many friendships.”  Once the work was completed, the Academy exhibited the mbari group for an additional 3 months.  Collaborators believe this was the first version of a mbari to be constructed outside of Nigeria, and the Academy’s documentation of the entire process makes a significant contribution to ethnographic knowledge.

Geoffrey Nwogu was born into a family of woodcarvers in Aboh-Mbaise, situated in Imo State, Nigeria.  He attended village school and learned woodcarving from his father, later working in his father’s studio. While developing his personal style as an artist, he became well known in Nigerian art circles and served as a prominent member of the exclusive Mbari Group of Artists.  He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1983.  His work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and widely collected.

The California Academy of Sciences, a private nonprofit institution based in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, comprises the Steinhart Aquarium, Natural History Museum, and Morrison Planetarium along with eight scientific research departments.  Founded in 1853 as the first scientific institution in the West, the Academy’s mission is to explore and explain the natural world.  It is one of the ten largest natural history museums in the world.  The Academy’s natural history collections, which include specimens of animals, plants, minerals, and anthropological artifacts, serve scientists internationally.  Its Department of Anthropology, devoted to study of humanity from the evolution of primates to the diversity of modern cultures, was formally recognized as a scientific department at the Academy in 1900.  For the past 20 years the Department has included a strong Traditional Arts Program that invites performers and artists from the Bay Area’s diverse ethnic communities to present a wide array of public programs.

Geoffrey I. Nwogu is a sculptor, painter, and photographer.  He was trained as an artist under his father and grandfather in Eastern Nigeria for over ten years, working mainly in wood.  Nwogu is a pioneer of the famous “Mbaise School,” a school of thought in Nigerian art that stormed the nation in 1970.  Although his training was in traditional Igbo art of his ethnic group, he went on in life to establish himself in both the national and international art scene as a contemporary artist through education, exhibitions, and interaction with other artists.  He has been showing his work in galleries and museums throughout the world since he was a teenager.

Nwogu received a Certificate in Education from the University of London, England.  He has lived in San Francisco since 1983, while showing his works in galleries and museums in Africa, the United States of America, Asia, South America, and Europe.  He also has taught and lectured in many institutions of art in Nigeria and the United States, including the Academy of Art College, the University of California, Santa Barbara, San Francisco State University, and the San Francisco Art Institute.

Nwogu’s work has been collected by museums, public and private organizations, and individuals in many parts of the world.  He is listed in Who’s Who in Nigerian Art, (Smithsonian, Washington, DC);  Who’s Who in African Art, (Afrique E’encreation, Paris), and The Encyclopedia of Living Artists in America, (Directory Publishers, California).  He also is a published photographer who has worked for The San Francisco Examiner and other clients.

Geoffrey Nwogu:  Awards

• Governor’s Art Council Award, Imo State, Nigeria (1982)
• Fuji Fine Art Award, Fuji Museum, Tokyo (1986)
• Octagon Membership Award, Owerri, Nigeria (1986)
• American Art Association Merit Award, San Francisco (1995)
• Cultural Award, City of Toluka, Mexico (1999)