The Mbari Club was a centre for cultural activity by African writers, artists and musicians that was founded in

Ibadan Ibadan (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the List of Nigerian cities by population, third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano (city), Kano, with a total populatio ...

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

, in 1961 by

Ulli Beier Chief Horst Ulrich Beier, commonly known as Ulli Beier (30 July 1922 – 3 April 2011), was a German editor, writer and scholar who had a pioneering role in developing the Western world's understanding of literature, drama and poetry in Niger ...

, with the involvement of a group of young writers including

Wole Soyinka Wole Soyinka , (born 13 July 1934) is a Nigerian author, best known as a playwright and poet. He has written three novels, ten collections of short stories, seven poetry collections, twenty five plays and five memoirs. He also wrote two transla ...

and

Chinua Achebe Chinua Achebe (; born Albert Chinụalụmọgụ Achebe; 16 November 1930 – 21 March 2013) was a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic who is regarded as a central figure of modern African literature. His first novel ''Things Fall Apart'' ( ...

."Ulli Beier" (obituary)
''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are often names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * The Telegraph (Adelaide), ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaid ...

'', 11 May 2011."Mbari Mbayo Club"
''Encyclopædia Britannica''. '' Mbari'', an

Igbo Igbo may refer to: * Igbo people, an ethnic group of Nigeria * Igbo language, their language * anything related to Igboland, a cultural region in Nigeria See also * Ibo (disambiguation) * Igbo mythology * Igbo music * Igbo art * * Igbo-Ukwu, a t ...

concept related to "creation", was suggested as the name by Achebe. Among other Mbari members were

Christopher Okigbo Christopher Ifekandu Okigbo (16 August 1932 – 1967) was a Nigerian poet, teacher, and librarian, who died fighting for the independence of Biafra. He is today widely acknowledged as an outstanding Postcolonialism, postcolonial English-languag ...

, J. P. Clark and South African writer

Ezekiel Mphahlele Es'kia Mphahlele (17 December 1919 – 27 October 2008) was a South African writer, educationist, artist and activist celebrated as the Father of African Humanism and one of the founding figures of modern African literature. He was given the ...

Amos Tutuola Amos Tutuola (; 20 June 1920 – 8 June 1997) was a Nigerian writer who wrote books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales. Early history Amos Olatubosun Tutuola Odegbami was born on 20 June 1920, in Wasinmi, a village just a few miles outsid ...

, Frances Ademola,

Demas Nwoko Demas Nwoko (born 1935) is a Nigerian artist, protean#Cultural references, protean designer, architect and master builder. In the 1960s, he was a member of the Mbari club of Ibadan, a committee of burgeoning Nigerian and foreign artists. He wa ...

Mabel Segun Mabel Segun, NNOM (13 February 1930 – 6 March 2025) was a Nigerian poet, playwright and writer of short stories and children's books who was also a teacher, broadcaster, and a sportswoman. Biography Born in Ondo City, Nigeria, she had her se ...

Uche Okeke Christopher Uchefuna Okeke (; April 30, 1933 – January 5, 2016), also known as Uche Okeke (), was an illustrator, painter, sculptor, and teacher. He was an art and aesthetic theorist, seminal to Nigerian modernism. Background Christopher Uche ...

, Arthur Nortje and

Bruce Onobrakpeya Bruce Obomeyoma Onobrakpeya (born 30 August 1932) is a Nigerian printmaker, painter and sculptor. He has exhibited at the Tate Modern in London, the National Museum of African Art of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Mal ...

.Oyekan Owomoyela
''The Columbia Guide to West African Literature in English Since 1945''
Columbia University Press, 2013, p. 129. ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'' in an obituary of Beier noted that "the Mbari Club became synonymous with the optimism and creative exuberance of Africa’s post-independence era.

Fela Kuti Fela Aníkúlápó Kútì (born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Kuti; 15 October 1938 – 2 August 1997) was a Nigerians, Nigerian musician and political activist. He is regarded as the principal innovator of Afrobeat, a Nigerian music genre t ...

made his debut as bandleader there, and it became a magnet for artists and writers from all over Africa, America, and the Caribbean." In the words of Toyin Adepoju: "Coming to birth in the flux of the pre-independence and immediate postindependence period in Nigeria, it brought together a constellation of artists whose work embodied the quality of transformation embodied by the aesthetic of creation, decay, and regeneration evoked by the Mbari tradition."Toyin Adepoju
"Mbari Club"
in

Carole Boyce Davies Carole Boyce Davies is a Caribbean-American professor of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University, the author of the prize-winning ''Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Claudia Jones'' (2008) and ''Black Women, Writing and Identity: ...

(ed.), ''Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture: Origins, Experiences, and Culture'', ABC-CLIO, 2008, p. 665. Closely connected with the literary magazine ''

Black Orpheus ''Black Orpheus'' ( Portuguese: ''Orfeu Negro'' ) is a 1959 romantic tragedy film directed by French filmmaker Marcel Camus and starring Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello. It is based on the play '' Orfeu da Conceição'' by Vinicius de Moraes, ...

'', which Beier had founded in 1957, Mbari also acted as a publisher during the 1960s — considered to be the only African-based publisher of African literature at the time — producing 17 titles by African writers. Mbari published early works by Clark, Okigbo and Soyinka, poetry by

Bakare Gbadamosi Bakare Gbadamosi (born 1930) is a Yoruba poet, anthropologist and short story writer from Nigeria. Life Born in Osogbo, Hammed Gbadamosi wrote his own Yoruba poetry and short stories in the early 1960s. However, he is best known for collecting an ...

(''Okiri'', 1961), Alex La Guma (''A Walk in the Night and Other Stories'', 1962),

Dennis Brutus Dennis Vincent Brutus (28 November 1924 – 26 December 2009) was a South African activist, educator, journalist and poet best known for his campaign to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games due to its racial policy of apartheid. ...

(''Sirens, Knuckles, Boots'', 1963),

Kofi Awoonor Kofi Awoonor (born George Kofi Nyidevu Awoonor-Williams; 13 March 1935 – 21 September 2013) was a Ghanaian poet, author and diplomat. His work combined the poetic traditions of his native Ewe people with contemporary and religious symbolism ...

and Lenrie Peters, as well as translations of francophone poetry. Brutus was chosen as winner of the Mbari Prize, awarded to a black poet of distinction, but turned it down on the grounds of its racial exclusivity.

History

Founded in 1961 by a diverse group of writers, visual artists, musicians, and actors, and active throughout the 1960s, the Mbari Club was originally located in Ibadan's Dugbe Market, on the site of an old Lebanese restaurant that was converted into an open-air performance venue, an art gallery, a library, and an office. While celebrating the creativity of Nigerian talent in the newly independent nation, Mbari "was an international environment, attracting artists from across Africa and beyond". The premieres of Soyinka's ''The Trials of Brother Jero'' and Clark's ''Song of a Goat'' were staged at Mbari, and internationally renowned artists were also invited to play or exhibit their work, including

Langston Hughes James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. An early innovator of jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harl ...

Jacob Lawrence Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", an art form populariz ...

and

Pete Seeger Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 – January 27, 2014) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and social activist. He was a fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s and had a string of hit records in the early 1950s as a member of The Weav ...

. The club also initiated writing competitions. As recalled by

Lindsay Barrett Carlton Lindsay Barrett (born 15 September 1941), also known as Eseoghene, is a Jamaican-born poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, journalist and photographer, whose work has interacted with the Caribbean Artists Movement in the UK, the Black ...

, secretary of the Mbari Club from 1966 to 1967: "We were in a historic, literary setting ... when the civil war 967–70broke out and disintegrated everything."

Mbari Mbayo

In 1962 a similar club based on the same concepts, called Mbari Mbayo (the name this time reflecting a Yoruba phrase meaning: "Were I to see, I would rejoice" or "When we see it, we shall be happy"), was developed in

Oshogbo Osogbo (also known as ''Oṣogbo'', and seldomly as ''Oshogbo'') is a city in Nigeria. It became the capital city of Osun State in 1991. Osogbo city seats the Headquarters of both Osogbo Local Government Area (situated at Oke-Baale Area of th ...

— about 50 miles northeast of Ibadan — by dramatist

Duro Ladipo Durodola Durosomo Duroorike Timothy Adisa Ladipo (18 December 1926 – 11 March 1978), more commonly known as Duro Ladipo, was one of the best known and critically acclaimed Yoruba people, Yoruba dramatists who emerged from postcolonial Africa. ...

together with Beier and Mphahlele. Ladipo converted his father's house into an art gallery and a theatre, where he produced his plays. Artists who emerged from the Mbari Mbayo Club in Oshogbo include

Twins Seven Seven Twins Seven Seven, born Omoba Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale-Toyeje Oyelale Osuntoki (3 May 1944 – 16 June 2011) was a Nigerian painter, sculptor and musician. He was an itinerant singer and dancer before he began his career as an artist, first attendin ...

, Jimoh Buraimoh and Muraina Oyelami.

Mbari-Enugu

The Mbari-Enugu Club of Eastern Nigeria was established in 1963 and like Mbari Mbayo was particularly a platform for sculpture, painting and literary performance.

Selected list of people associated with The Mbari Club

* Frances Ademola *

* J. P. Clark * Vincent Akwete Kofi *

* Arthur Nortje *

* Muraina Oyelami *

Ibrahim el-Salahi Ibrahim El-Salahi (, born 5 September 1930) is a Sudanese painter, former public servant and diplomat. He is one of the foremost visual artists of the Khartoum School, considered as part of African Modernism and the pan-Arabic Hurufiyya art mov ...

Legacy

In June 2016, the Ibadan Literary Society (IBS) was launched, modelled after the Mbari Club. In December 2019, ''The Mbari Clubs and Nigerian Modernism'', an exhibition focusing on the Mbari Clubs in Ibadan and

Osogbo Osogbo (also known as ''Oṣogbo'', and seldomly as ''Oshogbo'') is a city in Nigeria. It became the capital city of Osun State in 1991. Osogbo city seats the Headquarters of both Osogbo Local Government Area (situated at Oke-Baale Area of th ...

, took place at the

Barbican Art Gallery The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London, England, and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and ...

in London."The Mbari Clubs and Nigerian Modernism – Into the Night tour"
Barbican, 11 December 2019.

References

External links

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

. * ’Tunji Olaopa
"The spirit of Mbari Club"
''Punch'' (Nigeria), 23 September 2018. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mbari Club, The 1961 establishments in Nigeria Arts organizations based in Nigeria Arts organizations established in 1961 Poetry publishers Culture of Nigeria