PORTFOLIO – 43.

“SKUNDER” BOGHOSSIAN – THE CREATIVITY OF RESISTANCE.

By Nii B. Andrews.

Skunder Boghossain loved jazz and he often painted while the music played in the background; he often danced to the music as he painted.

“Jazz is”, he told a friend,” a very heavy movement of the twentieth century. It is not one person; it is not one thought, it is a combination of geniuses… the constant modulation of concepts… It is the one thing we have, black folks, as artists…”

His paintings were composed of complex figures and patterns, exuberant abstractions in vivid colors; his media included oil, paint, ink, crayon, animal skins and bark.

Skunder’s influences dated back to his years in Paris during the early 60s; they were mainly political and cultural –  Cesaire , Fanon, Diop, Paul Klee, Gerard Sokoto and the extraordinary Cuban surrealist – Wilfredo Lam.

By utilizing the input he received from West African artists during the hey day of the liberation movements, Skunder and his compatriots fashioned “the creativity of resistance”.

Within this movement, his work stood out on account of his “purity of intention”.

Skunder’s art involved an exploration of radical cultural imagery whilst utilizing Surrealist and Cubist techniques.

Sometimes there were fragmented limbs, and cattle horn motifs, which were also common in Wilfredo Lam’s work.

Warm red, orange, and yellow hues in the paintings convey a passionate energy ignited in Skunder during this period of intense nationalist fervor.

Even the indigenous Ethiopian debtera scroll – where symbols that express the ambiguities of good and evil appear and dissolve, did not escape a spectacular interpretation by Skunder.

A virtuoso piece in that genre, CROSSROADS (painted between 1992-1997) goes on auction at Sotheby’s this week; its estimated value USD 53 000- 93 000.

CROSSROADS (immediately below) is richly textured; it embodies the delicate weaving of lines and the complex interlacing of symbols.

Alexander “Skunder” Boghossain was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1937. When he was 18, he won an imperial scholarship from the government to study in Europe.

He spent two years in London where he attended St. Martins School, Central School and the Slade School of Fine Art.

For another nine years he was a student and teacher at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and same in the atelier of Alberto Giacometti.

In 1966 Boghossian returned to Ethiopia where he taught at the Fine Arts School in Addis Ababa until 1969. During this period, he exerted a  strong and lasting influence on Ethiopian modern art.

Atlanta beckoned in 1969.

He became artist in residence at Atlanta University and then in 1974 he was given an appointment at Howard University where he remained until 2000, retiring as an Associate Professor.

When a civil war began in Ethiopia in 1974, Skunder could no longer return; he lived in exile until his death in 2003 in Washington DC.

Skunder left a unique and indelible mark on modern African art.

With great dexterity, he was able to weld two important perspectives; namely, a traditional approach to culture and its complex and multifaceted tie with the historical development of European art.