How do you describe a person who was so many different things to so many people from all over the world?
To most of us, she is known as a great artist of course, but there was so much more to Susanne Wenger and her life.
In the middle of
the First World War, she was born in Graz, a town in Southern Austria.
From a very early age, Susanne was drawn to nature and spent a lot of
her time in the woods and mountains around the town.
Her artistic
journey began at the College for Arts and Crafts in Graz where she
started by experimenting with different techniques such as drawings in
pencil, ink and crayon, ceramic works and clay sculptures.
She then moved to
Vienna where she spent four years at the Academy of Art and lived
through the horror of the city during the occupation, the war, and
finally the liberation. Susanne refused to accept the Nazi regime and
helped to hide Jewish friends and other people listed by the Nazis as
“unwanted”. Her art was considered “degenerate” by the regime and she
was forbidden to paint but found refuge in books about eastern
religions and far away countries.
During the nights
when the bombs fell on Vienna, she was haunted by dreams which she put
on paper during the day – surreal picture-worlds born of fear and
despair. These are now regarded by the “experts as “the first surreal
works of art by an Austrian painter”.
Artistic Freedom
The role of modern
artists during the Second World War was the subject of an exhibition in
Graz in 2001 ‘Moderne In Dunkler Zeit’ (‘Modern Art In Dark Times’)
which paid special tribute to the efforts of Susanne Wenger, the only
surviving artist of the period, for maintaining human values, risking
her own life, and helping others against the regime.
In 1946, she was a
founding member of the Art Club in Vienna, an international association
proclaiming “the right for artistic freedom”. Its centre was in Rome,
with branches in Belgium, Brazil, Egypt, France, Israel, South Africa,
Holland, Turkey, Uruguay, and Austria. Its chairman was Pablo Picasso,
then thought of as the embodiment of the “horror” of the modern art
movement.
After recovering
from a serious fall into a lift shaft just before the end of the war,
she travelled to Rome and Sicily in spring 1948 and later that year to
Zurich and Paris.
In Paris, Susanne
was attracted by the bohemian life and artistic circles with their
intellect and critical attitude. Here, for the first time in her life,
she could paint happily, free of troubles and restrictions.
She met Ulli Beier
in Paris, who at the time was working with handicapped children and had
just accepted a posting at the University of Ibadan. They got married
(using a pair of curtain rings as wedding rings) and set off for
Nigeria, driving across North Africa, the Atlas Mountains, and the
Sahara Desert before arriving in Ibadan in early 1950.
Yoruba Religion
After spending a
couple of years in the university compound, the couple moved to Ede
where Susanne met the Obatala Priest, Ajagemo, who became her mentor,
“guru” and great friend. After a long process of learning not only a
new and very different language, but also gaining knowledge about the
complexities and spiritual dimensions of the Yoruba Religion and its
traditions, she was initiated as a priestess.
After 4 years, they
moved to the village of Ilobu, where Susanne was further integrated
into the Yoruba culture. This is where she painted vivid pictures
echoing the experiences she had had during her apprenticeship and
initiation.
In Ilobu, she also
learned the ancient technique of Adire – where cassava starch is used
to create patterns on material, which is then dyed in indigo. Using
this technique, she started painting interpretations of Yoruba
mythology on pieces of cloth stitched together to create huge
monochrome canvasses.
1958 brought
another important turn in her life. Having moved, with Ulli Beier, to
the beautiful old stone house built in the Brazilian style on Ibokun
Road in Oshogbo, where she was going to spend the rest of her life, she
was asked by a high ranking priest to help restore an important shrine.
Together with a few local craftsmen, she started rebuilding the shrine
known as “Idi Baba” which is located away from the Groves on the road
to Ibokun.
Restoration of Osun Grove
This was the
beginning of what would become Susanne Wenger’s most important artistic
achievement. In more than 40 years of continuous work she not only
created the sacred shrines, monumental sculptures, and statues for
which the Groves are now famous, but she also managed to defend this
area of unspoilt forest from the encroaching town, from determined
farmers who wanted to cut down the trees for farmland, and from
poachers who wanted to hunt there. At one stage, Susanne said they
wrapped white bed-sheets around the large trees to save them from being
cut down.
The first
restoration project within the Sacred Groves was the shrine dedicated
to the goddess of the River Osun, the ‘Waters of Life’. This shrine,
‘Ojubo Osun’, had been destroyed by termites, and some people had
already started on repairs when Susanne was asked by the Osun priestess
for help. Slowly, inspired by Susanne’s example, the local woodcarvers,
blacksmiths, carpenters, and bricklayers began to develop their own
artistic potential.
Adebisi Akanji, who
had mastered the technique of cement sculpture, passed this knowledge
on to Susanne and was most important and instrumental in the subsequent
building of the monumental sculptures and structures.
Kasali Akangbe was
responsible for most of the scaffolding and wooden roof structures but
he is also one of the acclaimed woodcarvers who, together with Buraimoh
Gbadamosi, created most of the woodcarvings in the Groves. Examples of
Kasali’s remarkable carvings, as large doors and pillars can be found
at the new extension to the Bogobiri Hotel in Ikoyi, Lagos; and at the
Theatre in-the-round established by the late Barbara Anne Teer in
Harlem, New York, as well as in numerous private art collections.
Buraimoh Gbadamosi
is also a stone carver and is best known for his stone figures of
“Earth-spirits” – or as Susanne called them “Kiliwis”. These artists
are amongst the nucleus of the New Sacred Art Movement that Susanne
nurtured.
After the Oshun
shrine was completed, many others followed: “Iledi Ontotoo”, the
“Obatala shrine complex”, the impressive “Iya Mopoo”, the majestic
“Ela” and many more.
Metaphysical snapshots
Whilst the work in
the groves was going on, at home in her atelier, she developed a
technique that was a mixture of textile-painting, wax batik and indigo
dye. This is how she created her impressive batiks – some of which
measure 7 by 3.5 metres!
The themes of these
cloth paintings, are again, stories from Yoruba mythology, which in her
own words: “present a sort of metaphysical snapshot”.
Between 1952 and
1970, Susanne also illustrated and designed books by Yoruba authors and
wrote children’s books, both in English and Yoruba, and also
contributed to the legendary Black Orpheus Magazine, which was founded
by Ulli Beier.
In the mid 1960s,
she once again took up oil painting and as there was no canvas
available, she painted on plywood panels from old tea chests. During
this period, her paintings covered a wide span of themes from the
history of mankind, the Bible, world literature and environmental
issues as well as themes from Yoruba mythology. Unlike the monumental
sculptures in the groves or the large batiks, her oil paintings express
her philosophy on a relatively small canvas, but they are just as
powerful.
Sacred Art
Susanne was a very
spiritual and religious person, religious in a sense that has nothing
to do with following a doctrine or script but with the acceptance of a
different, mystical dimension that is inherent in all that exists. In
her own words: “creative thinking and art are not measurable since they
are testimony of the truth, and this truth, the only truth, has many
faces. Who can count the faces of truth? All religions are ultimately
“the religion of mankind”. Art is ritual.”
From the mid 1980s,
Susanne Wenger had many important exhibitions in Europe, the first
marked her 70th birthday in 1985 and brought her art back to Vienna for
the first time in 35 years.
Ten years later,
the Kunsthalle Krems staged a large retrospective exhibition in the
Minoritenkirche, which included works from the Nigerian New Sacred Art
Movement.
Her hometown, Graz, then followed with an exhibition in 2004, ‘Along the Banks of a River in Africa’.
Other venues
included Prague in 1992, Bayreuth in 1993, Gmunden in 2001 and in the
same year she took part in the exhibition staged by Okwui Envezor, ‘The
Short Century – Independence and Liberation movements in Africa
1945-1994′, which was shown in Munich, Berlin, Chicago, New York.
Her work in the
groves, her involvement in the Yoruba Traditions, her paintings,
drawings and batiks found international acclaim and Susanne met people
from all over the world and corresponded regularly with a large number
of friends. I remember coming back from Oshogbo with a wad of envelopes
to be posted for her. Those of course were the days when the only
working telephone was in a neighbour’s house, computers, emails and
mobile phones were things of the future and months-old newspapers and
magazines the only source of news from Europe.
Extended family
Besides all this,
she still found enough time to dedicate herself to her growing
“extended family”. She was entrusted by one of the last truly great
Osun Priests, Layi Olosun, to bring up most of his children. One of
those children is Doyin Faniyi; Susanne also adopted Sangodare
Gbadegesin Ajala at the age of five. Sangodare is a prolific batik
artist, known to use up to 30 colours, often giving a stained-glass
effect to his large wall-hangings. He recently won the National Art
Competition and is due to follow-up with exhibitions in the UK and the
Netherlands.
Faniyi and
Sangodare are now very significant personalities in the hierarchy of
Yoruba Tradition and are dedicated to the protection and preservation
of Susanne’s legacy. They are also key members of the New Sacred Art
Movement.
Over the decades,
many more children grew up in her home in Ibokun Road and many friends
and fellow artists have found support and help within its walls. One
way of supporting the emerging artists of the New Sacred Art Movement
was to buy their work, which Susanne did, and these pieces now form the
mainstay of her substantial private collection of traditional but
mainly modern Nigerian art. This collection was documented in a recent
publication by the ‘Adunni Olorisha Trust: Susanne Wenger, her House
and her Art Collection’.
Incidentally, her
own works are nearly all in Austria, with art curator Wolfgang Denk, to
whom Suzanne had given them, to be preserved as a complete collection,
not for sale. They are now held in trust and are to be housed for
posterity at a purpose built museum/gallery in Krems funded by the
Austrian Government, which will open in March. As recently as two years
ago, the collection was being considered for a spot-light at the famous
Venice Art Biannale. Occasionally, the few examples of her works in
private hands do find their way on to the international art market,
such as the Bonhams exhibition and art auction of African works last
year in New York.
Her death has not
only left an empty chair at her favourite spot along the river, it has
also left us with the enormous task of preserving her legacy.
Looking back, these
are only some of the many things Susanne Wenger was: the student, the
activist and resistance fighter, the survivor, the traveller, the wife,
the drop out, the apprentice, the teacher, the sponsor, the
environmentalist, the animal lover and protector, the matriarch, the
friend, the philosopher and above all, the artist.
She was all this –
and more – and there is only one thing Susanne Wenger most certainly
was not: a materialist. Money to her was a means to an end but not
something she ever wanted for herself.
She lived a remarkable life and made a remarkable contribution to Nigeria and the world. May her legacy be preserved.
