Rufus Ogundele

In his early life Rufus Ogundele worked as a musician and actor in his uncle Duro Ladipo’s theatre company. When he took part in one of the famous Oshogbo workshops, conducted by Dennis Williams in 1963, Ogundele became one of the earliest talents to be recognised. Georgina Beier invited him and Jacob Afolabi to work in her home and Ogundele developed his printmaking skills under her tutelage.

Ogundele went on to practice art full-time, building on artistic techniques he had developed under Williams and Beier which he fused with subject matter rooted in Yoruba culture and teachings.

Alongside other of the founding Oshogbo artists, Ogundele’s work has been exhibited widely across the world. He partook in Contemporary African Art, Camden Arts Centre, London, 1969; Oeuvres Africaines Nouvelles, Musée de l’Homme, Paris, 1970; Contemporary Nigerian Graphics and Textiles, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston, 1973; A Concrete Vision: Oshogbo Art in the 1960s, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., 2000. In 1983 he was artist-in-residence at the Iwalewa-Haus in Bayreuth, Germany.