Twins Seven-Seven, (b. Nigeria, 1944 - 2011) Signed `Twins 77 - Oshogbo 1967` (on face of work)Oil

Twins Seven-Seven, (b. Nigeria, 1944 - 2011) Signed `Twins 77 - Oshogbo 1967` (on face of work)

Oil and acrylic on canvas

88 x 88cm (34.6 x 34.6in)

Framed

One of Nigeria`s most celebrated visual artists Prince Twins Seven-Seven was born `Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale-Toyeje Oyelale Osuntoki` in 1944 in Nigeria and died in Ibadan in 2011. The sole survivor of seven successive sets of twins, he renamed himself Ibeji Meje-Meje, or "Twins Seven-Seven” and as a member of a royal lineage of the Yoruba people he took the title of Prince.Twins Seven Seven had worked as an itinerant singer and dancer before he walked into one of the Mbari Mbayo art workshops led by Georgina and Ulli Beier in Oshogbo in 1964. He took to painting immediately, and became one of the stars of the Oshogbo school. While a Modernist in style, he took as his primary subject the rich religious and historical traditions and mythology of his Yoruba ethnic group.

The Three Wanderers in the City is one of Twins Seven Seven`s first major works - exhibited and sold in Ibadan at his first exhibition in 1967 when the artist was only 23 years of age.

Unlike many of the artist`s other works, dominated by brown earthy colours, this painting is unusual for its strong, expressive primary colours fusing subject matter from ancient Yoruba mythology with an electric, urban energy.

Biography:

In 2005 Twins Seven-Seven was awarded UNESCO Artist for Peace. He achieved international fame, with exhibiting at major museums across the world, including the Pompidou Centre and the Musée de L`Homme in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Museum of African Art in Washington, the Houston Contemporary Art Museum and the National Museum of Art in Lagos, Nigeria.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Acquired direct from the artist a private collection, Sweden Click here to view Catalogue