06.1943–present
Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede
Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede (born 1943) studied sculpture under masters in Ekiti and Lagos, and from 1963 lived and worked in London, where in 1970 he opened a studio with a foundry. His work appeared on the covers of Buchi Emecheta’s novels and represented Britain at Festac ’77 in Lagos. He also writes poetry and children’s stories.
Biography
In 1977 a group of Black artists and photographers travelled from Britain to Lagos for the Second World Festival of Black Arts and African Culture (Festac ’77). Among them was the Nigerian-born Emmanuel Taiwo Jegede, who had left for Britain fourteen years earlier.
He was born in June 1943 in Ayegbaju Ekiti, in a Yoruba-speaking region of Nigeria. The exact date of birth is not given in the available sources, only the month and year.
He received his first training as a sculptor in Ekiti, as an apprentice to a master known as Pa Akerejola. He then studied at the Yaba School of Technology in Lagos under the sculptor Osagie Osifo, who was of Edo origin. In 1963 Jegede went to Britain, where he studied at Willesden College of Technology and Hammersmith College of Art: decorative arts, interior design, sculpture and bronze casting. He works in wood, bronze and ceramics, and also as a painter and printmaker. His first exhibition took place in 1968 at the Woodstock Gallery in London. In 1970 he set up a studio with a foundry in the Riverside area of London. In the following decade his work reached beyond the galleries: it appeared on the covers of two novels by Buchi Emecheta, “The Bride Price” (1976) and “The Slave Girl” (1977), published by Allison & Busby. Greetings cards with his drawings were sold in the bookshop of Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications, the publishing house founded by Jessica and Eric Huntley. In the 1970s he was artist-in-residence at the Keskidee Centre, the first arts centre for the Black community in Britain. Bob Marley, Walter Rodney, Edward Brathwaite, Angela Davis and Linton Kwesi Johnson were among those who came and worked there. In 1978 the Rainbow Art Group was founded on Jegede’s initiative. Its members included, among others, Uzo Egonu, Lancelot Ribeiro, Errol Lloyd and Mohammad Zakir; the group’s first exhibition, “Paintings and Sculptures”, opened in 1979 at Action Space in London.
His work was shown in “Afro-Caribbean Art” (Artists Market, London, 27 April to 25 May 1978), organised by Drum Arts Centre, and in “Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean Artists in Britain 1966–1996”, organised by the Caribbean Cultural Center in New York in 1997–98. In 2015 his work was included in “No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960–1990” at the Guildhall Art Gallery in London.
He also took part in “The Griot’s Tale”, a theatrical project staged by his son, the musician Tunde Jegede: in 2013 it was presented in Yinka Shonibare’s studio and then performed at the Africa Centre in London. Jegede writes poetry and children’s stories.
Profile notes