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The enigma of
photographer J.A.Green, is very-well described in the loaded
observation by Professors of Art and researchers Martha Anderson and
Lisa Aronson; that, “for more than a century J.A.Green was hidden in
plain sight!” Happily, Green’s works are still being frequently sighted
worldwide and consciousness about him and his background are now better
defined.

The good news is
that presently many Nigerian and non-Nigerian art critics, historians,
collectors and few buyers, are now genuinely surprised to learn that
creative photography by Nigerians is not only well over a century old
but also won international acceptance and appreciation more than three
decades before the plastic arts from Nigeria. Paradoxically, this fact
was hidden for a whole century whilst the identification and
recognition of modern/contemporary Nigerian plastic arts on the
international scene was spontaneous. It took a twist in history and the
long research of these two white female American Professors of Art to
unravel and properly situate the beginning of photography as well as
its prominent establishment as Art in Nigeria.

As from the early
1890s, captivating and poignant photographic images of the British
colonial military subjugation of Southern Nigeria and the Niger Delta,
as well as photographs of Europeans, colonial structures and
construction projects, individuals and family groups from the Niger
Delta in particular, were in circulation and the vogue in Britain and
Europe.

Some of these
photographs started appearing in books and periodicals as early as 1897
when the Illustrated London News (vol.110:122-23,397) published them as
well as illustrations based on these series of photographs, in the wake
of the notorious British punitive expedition to Benin City. Two of the
most famous photographs from this body of work, are of a distraught Oba
Ovonramwen of Benin (great grandfather of the present Oba Erediauwa) in
leg-chains on a ship on his way to exile in Calabar and; a photograph
of Chief Nana (and family) of Itsekiri also going on forced exile.

Mistaken identity
of exquisite technical quality, very creatively composed and
artistically accomplished; these distinguishing qualities of the
photographs, ironically, stoked a crisis of identity. Who was the
photographer responsible for these exceptionally powerful images? Most
times when these photographs were published, no credits were given.
However, on the photographs that ended up in private collections and
personal souvenir albums in Britain and Europe, was the stamp ‘J. A.
Green Artist Photographer’ at the back.

Given the
prevalent artistic climate in Europe at that time, and as a carry-over
from a primarily patronising and racist culture which did not believe
that the great Benin bronze, ivory and wood art-pieces that were taken
to Europe were actually produced by Black Africans, it was
automatically and wrongly assumed that J.A.Green was a white man;
either European or American! Green’s photographs which were facilitated
as a result of the fact that he was the ‘official’ and travelling
photographer of the core Niger Delta region and surrounds between 1890
and the turn of the century, were collectors’ items over a century ago
and, are still valued as priceless creative works. In the mid-1990s the
Photographic Archives of the National Museum of African Art in
Washington, U.S.A. acquired two albums of Green’s works. More than 170
of Green’s photographs have so far been documented in private and
public collections in London, Liverpool, Port Sunlight, Oxford and
Cambridge.

Reclaiming J.A.
Green By 1999 after much research viewing collections across Britain,
Anderson and Aronson finally established that Green is Jonathan Adagogo
Green, an Ibani-Ijaw from Bonny in present-day Rivers State. It is
interesting to note that Green was active when Bonny had the largest
number of resident expatriates; colonial officials and merchants, in
Nigeria! With the additional help of Emeritus Professor of History,
E.J.Alagoa and his Nigerian team which includes my humble self;
Anderson and Aronson are working on a book and exhibition of
J.A.Green’s works.

Adagogo Green was
of noble stock; son of a high Chief of a prominent Bonny House. He was
well-educated and socially very confident, all of which can be glimpsed
from his body of work. He became well-to-do from photography. died
rather young and is buried in an all-marble tomb imported from Belgium.

What do we learn
from Jonathan Adagogo Green? He was unquestionably Nigeria’s first
Master Photographer and Artist Photographer. He definitely had a
calling; which was, to properly document the whole spectrum of
political, commercial/industrial and social life around him. He used
his medium and profession to the highest levels and responsibly, as a
sensitive human being, to observe and document his environment, the
people and their activities, for posterity. He is indeed a Nigerian
pioneer in this genre and volume of documentation.

In the course of
his extensive work; and given the fact that he was not influenced by
the aesthetic and cultural tastes of Europe and the West, he was able
to establish what still remains an important cultural and aesthetic
yardstick on what African/Black beauty is, in terms of the feminine
face, physique, posture and adornment! His semi-nudes, which were in
demand by expatriates, were never erotic but rather dignified. Nor were
they posed in the now new manner of deliberate open-legged inviting
sensuality with buttocks stuck out, our Nigerian fashion and glamour
photographers have copied as the ‘new’ standards for
‘internationally-accepted’ Black beauty.

The social context
In Green’s photographs of colonial officials and white merchants of the
time, the view unmistakably senses that Green was in charge and in
control, although suppressed and deliberate traits of cocky racism are
well-frozen in the postures of these whites in group photographs with
Nigerian Chiefs and business partners, enlisted soldiers and policemen
and, their own all-white social groups. A refusal to look at/into the
camera/cameraman is one such gesture.

Green’s studies of
palm oil carriers, metal workers and craftswomen though a bit forced,
still imbue them with dignity. One of Green’s many classics is Akenta
Bob in her wedding dress. This and other photographs of Oba Ovonramwen
relaxed, smiling and yet regal-looking demonstrate that Green had a
wonderful ‘bedside’ and a charming intimacy that relaxed most of his
subjects.

His innovativeness, cultural awareness and linkages are best
appreciated in his use of locally-woven fabrics as backdrops; more so
as he also has photographs of women weaving these fabrics. He produced
postcards and photo-calendars. Thus J.A.Green, more than a century ago,
established a multi-dimensional culture of photography for Nigerian
photographers to emulate.

A blank frame Green’s place in the history of photography globally
is well-assured as one of the master documentary photographers of his
generation. Some of his iconic photographs are socio-political
documents that speak vivid volumes of the fate of African/Black leaders
who dared to challenge white colonial supremacy.

His Ovonramwem photos
are still being published in books, exhibition and drama catalogues
and, they anchor music videos, exhibitions and symposia that touch on
the stolen artworks from Benin, more than a century ago. He is a
precursor of the great African-American photographer James Van der Zee
who meticulously documented the Harlem Renaissance including Marcus
Garvey in plumed hat and ceremonial dress riding in an open carriage!
Jonathan Adagogo Green made it possible for the numerous great
photographers, including masters that Nigeria has produced in over one
century.

The only blank frame in the reel of astonishing artistic
achievements that document the growth and beauty of photography in
Nigeria is the sad fact that there is no known/available photograph of
Green yet.