Suzanna Ogunjami: an Enigmatic Modern Artist

Simon Ottenberg1

In 1960 Evelyn S. Brown, Associate Director of the Harmon Foundation in New

York City,2 wrote to the modern artist Miranda Burney-Nicol (Olayinka Burney-Nicol) in

Sierra Leone, enquiring of what had become of the artist Madame Ogunjami, who “while

not a native of Freetown, Sierra Leone, was the wife of an Anglican rector by the name of

M. N. Ogunjami Wilson.”3 Burney-Nicol knew of her but never met her and thought she

was deceased.4 Curiosity led me to the Harmon Foundation archives in the Manuscript

Division of the Library of Congress,, where I learned that her first name was Suzanna

(also Susanna and Suzanne), and that she sometimes went by her husband’s surname and

at other times by his African name of Ogunjami.,5 which name I will employ in this

account of her art and life.

Ogunjami claimed African heritage and beginning in 1928 and for some years the

Harmon Foundation exhibited and sold her art with African American artists (Harmon

Foundation.1971 (1935). In a long hand undated written statement which she probably

prepared in 1934 for the Harmon Foundation, she wrote: “I belong to the Ebo Tribe. Both

parents were member of the said Tribe of Nigeria, West Africa. I grew up in Jamaica and

came from there to this country. I am interested in African textile work, the designing and

weaving, also the manufacturing and dyeing of threads” (Ogunjami n.d.:1). From the

seventeenth to the early nineteenth century Ebo was a common designation in the

Western world for a people later known as Ibo and who are now sometimes called Igbo,

the largest cultural group in southeastern Nigeria.6

1

The Harmon Foundation typed copies of many of their artist’s statements and

letters, but Ogunjami’s typed form of her longhand statement, dated December 20, 1934,

is unusual in substantially differing from her longhand one, which is largely concerned

with the production of African cloth and with African religion. Whether this difference

resulted from an interview with her or for some other reason is unclear. The typed version

focuses on Ogunjami’s career, beginning: “My people were Africans and belonged to the

Ebo tribe in West Africa. Both parents were from Nigeria, where I was born. I had no art

training in Africa. I was just trained in general academic work in Jamaica, British West

Indies. I grew up in Jamaica and came from there to this country. Subjects [of her art] are

taken from what I know of Africa and what I have read. I read things and then visualize

them and then put it on canvas” (Ogunjami 1934:1).

On the next page Ogunjami states: “I have not been in Africa for a long, long,

time. The memories of Africa I have are from my childhood. The conditions existing in

West Africa as to my pictures, are similar to Jamaica. There are some forbears who have

continued the habits and customs of the tribes and the children and the children’s children

still keep up these habits and customs of the tribes and still try to do the things they are

taught in the way of making images and other things—Of course a lot of it has been lost.

I m going into the primtives as far as I can so that people may now the truth about West

Africa.” She attended primary and secondary school in Jamaica.

In a single-page longhand statement for the Harmon Foundation, her husband,

whose full name was Matthew Norman Ogunjami Wilson, wrote: “My father’s people are

members of the Nupe tribe and my mother’s belongs to the Ebo tribe. I am a third

2

generation Christian. My Father is the late Archdeacon of the Diocese of Sierra Leone,

West Africa.7 My native name is Ogunjami. I came directly from West Africa to the

General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church at 9th Avenue and 20th Street,

New York City” (M. Wilson 1934). In a typed version of this statement he adds: “I am a

fourth generation Christian—that is my Great Grandfather accepted Christianity, my

Grandfather, my Father was a minister, and I am the fourth generation.”8 Wilson was

evidently a well-educated Anglican of Krio background from Freetown, Sierra Leone.9 It

was and remains customary for Krios to have an African name often from the Yoruba, as

well as their English ones.

First Artistic Experience in the United States

In her longhand interview for the Harmon Foundation, Ogunjami wrote “My

nephew Francis Bowen, who is now in Africa, said I was artistically inclined and should

study everything I could in Fine Arts. I took his advice and after completing the course in

textiles proceeded with other subjects in the Extension Department” (Ogunjami n.d.:1).

She schooled part-time at Teachers College, Columbia University, for three years, while

assisting her husband with religious matters, and then attended college full-time for four

years. “Miss Elsie Ruffini, one of my instructors and my nephew Francis who was then a

student in Columbia College advised me to continue my work as a regular student getting

what I could and developing what I wanted. I majored in Fine Art Education, arranging

my programme according to the requirements” (Ogunjami n.d.:1). She received her B.S.

degree in Fine Arts in 1927 and her M.A. degree in 1928, with a fine arts diploma and a

3

thesis on West African arts and hand industries.10 A post-card sized photograph (Fig. 1)11

signed Suzanna Wilson finds her standing in a graduation gown; the card does not

indicate for which degree.12

Fig. 1Suzanna Wilson

4

Exhibitions with the Harmon Foundation

In her typed interview Ogunjami described how she came to be sponsored by the

Harmon Foundation. “Professor Martin was my teacher and Miss Ruffini was his

Assistant. They advised me to send the ‘[oil painting] “Sunflower” (Ogunjami 1934: 2-3).

In the Harmon Foundation’s 1935 summary publication (Harmon Foundation1971

(1935):34) we find: “Mme Ogunjami, wife of the Reverend M.N.O. Wilson, was born in

Nigeria, Africa,” and on page 53 that “SUZANNA OGUNJAMI….Born Nigeria, Africa,

member of the Ebo tribe, education at Jamaica, B.W.I.” A single-page 1937 résumé of

the artist in the foundation files, written in 1937, after she and her husband had left the

United States for Sierra Leone in 1935, lists her as Suzanna Ogunjami (Mrs. M.N.O.

Wilson), her place of birth as ‘Nigeria, Africa (member of the Ebo tribe)” (Harmon

Foundation1937b)..

She exhibited an oil painting on canvas between January 6 and 17, 1928 in the

Harmon Foundation’s first exhibition, held in New York: Exhibition of Fine Arts:

Productions of American Negro Artists (Harmon Foundation, et al. 1928; Harmon

Foundation 1971 (1935); Powell and Reynolds 1999:98). Andrea D. Barnwell writes of

the artist (1999:218), that “Ogunjami experienced considerable success when Sunflower,

one of her earliest oil paintings, was included,” although the catalogue only lists the work

Still Life under the name Suzanna Wilson (Harmon Foundation, et al., 1928) Ogunjami

appeared to be the first African-born modern artist to exhibit in the United States 13

The Harmon Foundation exhibited her Still Life sometime between 1929 and

1933, but where is not clear (Reynolds and Wright 1999:288). Between March 31 and

5

April 30, 1935 Ogunjami’s art work was in the Arts and Crafts Exhibition at the New

Jersey State Museum, Trenton, but no catalogue is available.14

Ogunjami’s art continued to be displayed through the Harmon Foundation for a

number of years after she had left the country in 1935. In 1936 one or more of her works

was in the foundation’s travelling exhibition (Harmon Foundation 1936), where it was

again written that she was “Born Nigeria, Africa, member of the Ebo tribe.” In a 1937

letter from Evelyn S. Brown at the foundation to Ogunjami, then in Sierra Leone, Brown

wrote: “Your work has been shown quite considerably and has received much favorable

comment. In December it went to the Rennaissance [sic] Society at the University of

Chicago for an exhibit were [sic] holding.15 In March of this year at the Mulvana Art

Museum of Washburn College, Topeka, Kansas, with a small exhibit of Negro work,16

and now one piece is in Kansas City at the Church of the Association and the other is at

Dillard University with a very distinguished exhibition which is being held during the

inauguration ceremonies for President William Stuart Nelson.”17 In the same letter Brown

suggested that Ogunjami might meet the African American artist, Richard Barthé in

Sierra Leone, who “has made quite a success of his work,” and is contemplating a trip to

Africa. There is no record of a meeting, although it is possible that they did so.

From December 18, 1961 to January 19, 1962, Ogunjami’s Full Blown Magnolia

(Fig. 2), Ogunjami’s best known work, was shown in a large Harmon Foundation

exhibition in New York City, Art from Africa of Our Time, for from the 1950s to 1967,

when it closed, the Harmon Foundation was interested in modern Africa art (Harmon

Foundation 1961). The painting had been with the Harmon Foundation since the 1930s.

6

The catalogue caption reads in part: “SUZANNA OGUNJAMI – SIERRA LEONE—

she was one of the first African artists to exhibit and sell her work in this country. She

was born in Nigeria and is an Ibo. It is no known whether she till lives and paints.” The

only other Sierra Leonean artist in the exhibition was Olayinka (Miranda) Burney-Nicol,

mentioned above (Ottenberg, n.d.). The two never met. Another Harmon Foundation

summary exhibition (Harmon 1966) held at the Museum of the Philadelphia Civic Center

(formerly The Commercial Museum), with the title of African Artists of Our Time,18

probably contained a work of or two of Ogunjami’s, though no catalogue was available.

Fig. 2Suzanna Wilson. Full Blown Magnolia. Oil painting on burlap. 20” x 24”

7

Full Blown Magnolia was shown in nine sites in the eastern United States in

1999-2001 as part of a major exhibition, To Conserve a Legacy, of the art of African

Americans from Black colleges and universities (Powell and Reynolds 1999:98:212-217).

Andrea D. Barnwell writes “In 1935 when Full Blown Magnolia was first exhibited it

was described as mirroring the wild landscape, the exotic foliage and the unusual people

of her native land” (Barnwell 1999:217) She notes, however, that magnolias are grow in

the southern United States. (They also occur in the Caribbean.) She goes on to comment

that the painting “consists of a single flower in a bulging vase with purple undertones that

sits on a table. The dark velvety drape behind the lone flower creates a theatrical tone,

removing it further from its natural setting and placing it in isolation. Magnolia trees are

common symbols of perseverance, sensuousness, love, beauty and refinement.

Considering Ogunjami’s personal and aesthetic interests, it is understandable why she

depicted the attractive flower.”

In a footnote on the same page, Barnwell writes that Ogunjami was “born of Igbo

(Nigeria) ancestry, [and] left West Africa for Jamaica at a young age,” citing Ogunjami’s

hand-written and typed 1934 Harmon Foundation interviews. In 1967, the year that the

Harmon Foundation ceased to exist, it donated Full Blown Magnolia along with work by

African modern artists to the Hampton University Museum. References to Ogunjami

appear in other publications under the names Suzanna Ogunjami or Suzanna Wilson,

indicating her African ancestry, her Igbo identity, or both.19

8

Delphic Studios’ Exhibition

Ogunjami held a solo exhibition at the Delphic Studios at 724 Fifth Avenue in

New York City between December 3 and 15, 1934, entitled Exhibition of Paintings by

Suzanna Ogunjami (Delphic Studios 1934). Although not sponsored by the Harmon

Foundation, it filmed the opening ceremonies. The commercial gallery was of some

distinction, consisting of three show spaces in a former private home. Ogunjami wrote

(1934) that it was her maiden solo exhibition, “the work of several years of study. I

started on the work exhibited after I had my Master’s Degree. With the exception of three

pieces, everything else has been done since I left Teachers College. I decided I wanted to

do everything by myself without criticisms or instructions. I very seldom went to an

exhibition as I really wasn’t interested in them. Once in a while I went up to Wanamakers

20 or different picture galleries just to see if there was anything new.”

On the front cover of the exhibition brochure there is a black and white

photograph of a painting by Ogunjami showing a seated woman with long black hair tied

in a bun in the back. The woman is wearing long simple necklace and a flowing light-

colored robe (Fig.3). The dress does not appear to be African: it may be Jamaican. In the

Harmon Foundation Ogunjami file there is a sketch by the artist of a female face with a

similar hairdo. Beside it she wrote: “This is a rough sketch, but it tells the type. A Bust

picture—purple waist, Head dress in rich yellow with borders of colours (subdued). The

border of the headdress shows life. Eyes—are rather dreamy. I consider attractive. I have

mislaid the copy. I always make the whole outline and then put [it] on the canvas after m

own rigid criticism”

9

Fig. 3Suzanna Ogunjami. Title unknown. Reproduction of a painting

on the front cover of the catalogue of her Delphic Studio Exhibition, 1934.

10

The small catalogue reads in part: “SUZANNA OGUNJAMI seems to have

inherited the artistic side of her ancestors, both parents being direct members of the Ibo

tribe of Nigeria, West Africa.” Twenty-seven paintings are listed, but it is not possible to

tell from the titles which one is depicted on the catalogue cover, nor does it indicate what

media she employed, although she often painted in oil on canvas. Some titles suggest

Africa: Nupe Princess, A Susu Beauty, Ekandayo, and Watching for the Caravans, which

may refer to African trading or slave caravans. Eight titles suggest floral still lifes,

including Sunflower21 and Full Blown Magnolia. There appear to be no New York City

images, although she had lived there for some years. While Ogunjami was religious, only

two titles, under the category of “Metalwork and Jewelry” suggest this: Alms Basin with

some Stone Settings, and Cross with Sapphire Setting Pendant.

The number of paintings in the exhibition suggests a fair level of productivity and

at least one of them sold.22 A black and white photograph of A Nupi [Nupe] Princess

(Fig. 4) in the United States Photographic Archives23 was in the Delphic Studios’

exhibition, unless Ogunjami created more than one work with this title. The painting

profiling the left side of the head and shoulders of a young woman is well delineated.

There is a bright eye and she is wearing a round earring, a beaded necklace, and a cloth

that ties her flowing hair at the back. The Nupe are an important cultural group in central

Nigeria and we have noted that Ogunjami’s husband’s father came from that group.

Another black and white photograph of a painting from the same archive is entitled

Portrait Study (Fig. 5). It is a apparently a full-face view of the same woman wearing a

large scarf in a band design.

11

Fig. 4Suzanna Ogunjami. Nupi [Nupe] Princess. Early 1930s. Oil on canvas?

12

Fig. 5Suzanna Ogunjami. Portrait Study. Oil on canvas? Early 1930s.

13

Alma M. Reed, the gallery owner was a journalist who had lived in Mexico for

many years. She exhibited the then little-known Mexican artists at the gallery, such as

José Clèmente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siquerios (Reed 2007:x-xi; May

1993:227-247). Perhaps sponsoring Ogunjami was part of a pattern of assisting artists

who were not well known whose work she admired, although Ogunjami’s art differed

greatly from that of the Mexican artists. Ogunjami wrote that her art was brought to

Reed’s attention through a “young artist, Mr. Dobkin—who admired the paintings and

suggested the Delphic Studios for my exhibition” (Ogunjami n.d.:5).24 The show was the

crowning moment of Ogunjami’s American artistic experience.

The Harmon Foundation Film

In 1937 the Harmon Foundation released A Study of Negro Artists, a silent, black-

and-white film based on the work of their group of artists, filmed in various settings over

a number of years (Reynolds and Wright 1989:104). The well-known African American

photographer, James Latimer Allen25 (Willis 2005:192-194) task was “to interpret the

Negro artist through his background and the influences under which he is achieving

today” (Reynolds and Wright 1989:104). The film contains nothing on Ogunjami, yet

among its outtakes there are several segments concerning her Delphi Studios’ opening

reception.26 She was the only non-African American artist in the full film and its outtakes.

“This footage is intriguing for two reasons. First, in contrast with the artists in the film

who are easily recognized, such as Richmond Barthé, Palmer Hayden, Lois Mailou Jones

and August Savage, Ogunjami is not familiar. Her presence in this film invites question

14

about this unknown artist who gained such acclaim that by the 1930s, she had a one-

woman exhibition under the auspices of a distinguished foundation, Second, because

Ogunjami’s paintings feature women braiding each others’ hair in idealized African

settings and portraits of African people, her art stands out from other artist’ work featured

in this film” (Barnwell 1999:218).

Fig. 6Suzanna Ogunjami. Title unknown.

The outtakes include several of Ogunjami’s still lifes of white-colored flowers as

well as Full Blown Magnolia. One image is of tulips in a vase with a carved African

figure at its right (Fig. 6). Some African American artists in the full film and in the

outtakes have African carvings in their studios where Allen filmed them at work. Another

still life depicts a rich flora display in a white vase. One of several portraits on the gallery

walls is of a light-skinner, dignified young adult women. The figure of a standing, dark-

15

skinned, nude woman with a loin cloth, wearing a necklace and with high-top hair is in

sharp contrast to this portrait. A genre paintings depicts a seated woman preparing the

hair of another female, who sits in front of her on the ground (Fig. 7). This image could

be set in Africa or the Caribbean.

Fig. 7Suzanna Ogunjami. Title unknown.

Another genre piece is of a seated woman weaving multi-striped cloth on what

appears to be a backstrap loom (Fig. 8). The setting is unlikely to be African as this form

of loom occurs there only in two Madagascar cultures, although women’s vertical looms

16

are found among various groups in Nigeria and elsewhere (Picton and Mack 1989:135-

135; Lamb and Holmes 1980:170-264). It is probably based on a loom from

Mesoamerica (Bjerregaard 1977: Ziek de Rodriquez and Ziek, 1978). The Delphic

Gallery paintings were probably in oil paint on canvas, Ogunjami’s most frequent

medium. There is a scene of a small portion of the gallery on opening day of the

exhibition (Fig.9). The viewers exhibition (Fig. 9). appear to be mostly white, consistent

with the role that some of them were playing as patrons of African American art. The

outtakes include images of Suzanna Ogunjami and her husband at the opening (Figs. 10

and 11).

Fig. 8Suzanna Ogunjami. Title unknown.

17

Fig. 9Examining an artwork at the opening of the Delphic Studios exhibition.

Fig. 10Suzanna Ogunjami at the opening of her Delphic Studios Exhibition.

18

Fig. 11The Reverend M. N. O. Wilson at the opening of Suzanna Ogunjami’s Delphic Studios

Exhibition.

Evaluations of Ogunjami’s Art

Ogunjami’s artistic work appeared in three settings in the United States: with

African American artists under the sponsorship of the Harmon Foundation, in a solo

exhibition at the Delphic Studios, and after she left the country with the Harmon

Foundation’s African modern artists, perhaps even after her death (date unknown,

probably in Jamaica). Her art was not concerned with social justice issues as was the

work of some of the African American and African artists. It largely consisted of floral

still lifes, portraits and genre images, drawn from African and Jamaican culture--all

conventional art forms for nineteenth and early twentieth century women painters

(Nochlin 1988:86), although some African American women artists, such as Augusta

Savage, had moved on to create in new forms and styles. None of Ogunjami’s art that is

19

available is religious, except for some jewelry, although she was a religious individual,

working closely with her clergyman husband in his clerical activities. Art and religion

were separate worlds except for her interest in African religions.

No detailed evaluation of Ogunjami’s art exists and reactions to it varied. Evelyn

S. Brown at the Harmon Foundation wrote in 1960, years after the artist had left the

United States: “We considered Madame Ogunjami’s work of high quality in art and think

her pictures we have here are very fine.”27 A Harmon Foundation summary, possibly

written by Brown, states: “Subject matter primarily African, interested mainly in that

country [sic] and in African primitives,” a statement that underplays her floral paintings.

An earlier comment in the same publication states: “her paintings mirror the world

landscape, the exotic foliage and the unusual people in her native land…. Ogunjami had

two interests outside of her painting—African primitives and religion. She has recently

returned to Freetown, West Africa, where she hopes to remain to record the bright

yellows and deep blues of her surroundings, and to aid her husband in the work of the

church” (Harmon Foundation 1971 (1935):53, 34). These comments, as others below,

reflect ignorance of Africa in the United States during the time of the presence of the

Harmon Foundation.

An anonymous Delphic Studios’ exhibition reviewer wrote: “Painted in America,

and done without models, her work includes many impressions of the American Negro.”

(“Artist from Nigeria Shows Art,” 1934:23). Barnwell (1999:217-218) comments that

Ogunjami’s “work evokes powerful connections between ancient African art forms and

modern Western themes….The majority of her paintings suggest that although she

20

painted a variety of subjects, she was primarily interested in religious education and in

creating images that countered the idea that African peoples were uncivilized. Her

paintings suggest that she wanted to depict the sophistication of African peoples and their

preoccupation with adornment and physical beauty. Because she left Nigeria at an early

age the subjects of her paintings were based on what she recalled of Africa and what she

had read.”

Howard Devree, reviewing the Delphic Studios’ exhibition wrote in the New

York Times (Devree 1934:8), wrote of the “exotic oils by Suzanna Ogunjami, described

as a daughter of the Ebo tribe….Miss Ogunjami employs rich but well controlled color

and has a striking sense of design.” A press comment in the Topeka Daily Capital of

March 14, 1937 (13B), as a consequence of a Harmon Foundation exhibition there, states:

“Striking in its strength of character and handling is the ‘Nupe Princess.’”

Christine Temin, as recently as 1999 (Temin 1999), wrote of Full Blown

Magnolia, when it was shown in a traveling exhibition of African American art, To

Conserve a Legacy at the Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts (Powell and

Reynolds eds., 1999), that it was “a mesmerizing image of pale petals, bravely flaring

open, like someone come out of hiding.”

Freida High (1999, 195), an art historian of African American and African art,

reacting to written statements about Ogunjami in the Harmon Foundation summary

publication on its African American artists (1971 (1935), wrote that Ogunjami “was

reported in stereotypical language that she was an Igbo,” adding that the “language used

21

to discuss Ogunjami was disturbing” (High 1999:193)., Unfortunately. she did not

expand on her views.

These are divergent reactions to Ogunjami ’s art, although the sense of the exotic

permeates some of them. Except for High, the other commentators had probably never

evaluated the work of an artist such as Ogunjami, and they undoubtedly had limited

knowledge of Africa and Jamaica. Her art is technically skilled in a traditional manner,

with good control of line and image. Her ability to draw from Jamaican, African and

African American life provided her with a wide range of materials. It would have been

helpful to know the reaction to her work of African American artists and scholars with

whom she exhibited, but no such records are available. Alain Locke, the African

American scholar, heavily involved in the promotion and study of the Black arts and their

indigenous African connections, while supportive of the Harmon Foundation’s activities,

seemed to have nothing to say about Ogunjami’s art in his publications and in his

archives in the Howard University Library. This is true despite a letter to him from Mary

Beattie Brady, the director of the Harmon Foundation, who wrote: “I am very anxious to

have you see the two pieces of her work that we kept to use in connection with our

traveling exhibition.”28

It does not appear that Ogunjami was involved with the Harlem Renaissance,

which was beginning to decline when Ogunjami was active as an artist in the United

States (Campbell 1987). Christian religious issues, of concern to her and her husband,

were not primary matters of interest in this movement. Ogunjami wrote (1934:3): “I have

been helping Mr. Wilson in the Episcopal church work right along.”

22

Ogunjami and the African American artists under the Harmon Foundation’s

patronage underwent experiences similar experiences to what emerging modern African

artists would later encounter. There were the Oshogbo artists and their major patron, Ulli

Beier in Nigeria, the Zimbabwean Shona soapstone sculptors and Frank McEwen, the

modern Makonde sculptors and Portuguese colonial officials and Catholic missionaries in

Mozambique (Beier 1991; McEwen 1972; Coote 1989; Stout 1966). The Commonwealth

Institute Art gallery in London exhibited modern African artists’ work, purchased some

of it, sold some of it to the public for the benefit of the artists, and exhibited organized

travelling exhibitions of this art. In all of these cases of patronage and control it appears

to have been middle-class whites making selections as to what was proper to exhibit, sell

and own, and this was true of the Harmon Foundation.

Ogunjami’s Writings on African Arts and Crafts

Ogunjami was fascinated with African material objects, particularly from West

Africa. In both the handwritten and the typed statements for the Harmon Foundation

(n.d.:2; 1934) she wrote favorably of African dyes, calling their use “Industrial Art,” and

admiring the Africans’ ability to control color and set the dyes properly. ”I hope I’ll be

able to do some fine art teaching on the [African] West Coast but primarily I intend to

make some research in the Fine Arts of West Africa. What I know of Africa is from my

childhood days. The conditions existing in West Africa are to a great extent similar to

that of Jamaica, and as to my paintings the subjects are often from what I know and what

I have been told. I sometimes visualize the interesting things I read about and finally

23

compose and paint a picture of same. I never studied art in any form before I became a

student at Teachers College, Columbia University, but I always had a feeling for it”

(Ogunjami n.d.:2-3)).

Ogunjami wrote favorably of African religion, though perhaps imposing on it

some of her Episcopalian views “In Africa there is a religion of a much higher conception

of God than is generally acknowledged by writers on African modes of thought…. The

African approaches God by all the various means which he has created.” (Ogunjami

1934:2): He believes the power is in the trees, springs and so forth” (Ogunjami n.d.:3-4).

“The primitives shown in my painting “The Sculptors” have spiritual meaning, People

think that the African people do not know God, but they do know God and in their daily

life they praise him. They believe that God is too great, is too wonderful, too exhaulted

[sic] for people to approach Him in an ordinary way as the Christians do—they want to

worship God through the medium of their sculptures—not as wood or stone” Elsewhere

she wrote “Educated Africans and the children of the dispersion are acquainted with the

art of Europe, but of the art of their own countries only a few know. The subject can by

no means be exhausted” (Ogunjami n.d.:5-6).

The artist’s thirty-five page Master’s Thesis at Teachers College (Wilson 1928)

entitled The Arts and Hand Industries of West Africa: Their Social, Economic and

Aesthetic Importance, appeared in 1928, the year she first exhibited her art. This review

of West African art, crafts, and production techniques made use of information and

photographs from standard books and articles of the time, and perhaps she gained some

information from her husband. She admiringly focused on the value of what Africans

24

made by hand and their close links to African religion. She hoped that modern African

life would not destroy these skills. There is idealization of indigenous African life in her

writing, seeing Africans as simple, but technically skilled, peaceful and happy, with hints

that Western civilizations is not as happy and peaceful. There is not enough information

on Ogunjami’s own art to relate it to the African culture she discusses. In any case, her

views on African culture show greater insight than that of many writers of the same

period, reflecting her genuine interest in it, and a wish to be involved with African artists

and craftspeople in their own land.

Ogunjami’s Religious Background

A major interest of Ogunjami’s life in America was her religious activities with

her husband under her married surname of Wilson. I do not know what her religious

beliefs were before marriage, but after this event she followed her husband’s

Episcopalian faith. He was ordained in 1914 in New York City as an Episcopal deacon

and a priest following four years’ study at the General Theological Seminary there.29 In

1916 he became head of the Chapel of the Messiah at 206 East 95 th Street in Manhattan, a

neighborhood changing in racial composition. It was formerly “a Chapel for white

people, and a colored vicar was placed there to undertake to work among his own people”

(Chapel of the Messiah 1919:11). Ogunjami wrote that the congregation was made up of

“Africans, West Indians and Americans” [probably African Americans].30 The chapel

also catered to Black troops during and after World War I. (M. Wilson 1919:398-399).

“Great gratitude is due the vicar and his wife for their establishing this work and for their

25

undertaking along the lines of clubs and classes for the people of the neighborhood”

(“Chapel of the Messiah 1919:11). African students were members of the congregation

and in 1919, although no longer a student, Ogunjami’s husband was listed as President of

the African Students’ Union of America at its sixth annual conference at Hampton

Institute (The Horizon 1920:241). The couple lived in the chapel and the congregation

grew rapidly. In 1919 the Reverend Wilson wrote of the successful rehabilitation of the

mission: “The untiring, unselfish efforts and devotion of Mrs. Wilson in everything that

concerns the work—according to existing circumstances—is unparalleled. Without

hesitancy she relinquished her position in the Public School, immediately after the work

started here…. We have worked side by side in sickness and health.31 In 1920 Ogunjami

wrote enthusiastically about the chapel’s activities (S. Wilson 1920:90-91). On December

29, 1925, the Wilsons lost all of their possessions when the chapel burned to the ground

during a holiday festival but there was no loss of life,32 although he lost a substantial

collection of African cloth and other objects. The congregation, still under the Wilsons

then met here and there in the city, but it was disbanded in 1935 for financial reasons and

the lack of a permanent home.33

From 1927 to 1934 Matthew Wilson served as Missionary-in-Charge of St.

Simon’s Mission, New Rochelle, north of New York City, though according to the 1930

census the couple still lived in the city. The appointment terminated in 1934 due to the

dissatisfaction of some congregation members with Wilson’s leadership, his ill health,

and the deteriorating condition of the mission’s building.34 The Wilsons were anxious to

go to Africa and the Anglican clergy in Sierra Leone wanted him back home for work.

26

Ogunjami wrote: “We are going back to Mr. Wilson’s diocese in Africa, and he doesn’t

expect to ever return to this country to do any work. My main object is to be with him

and help him with his work, and primarily to devote the balance of my life, God granting,

for the interest of my people on those lines established” (Ogunjami 1934:3).

Doubts Arise

When this paper was submitted for publication to the journal African Arts, a

reviewer, the art historian Professor Steven Nelson at the University of California, Los

Angeles, while checking on some of his Jamaican relatives in the 1930 United States

Census, looked up Suzanna Wilson. What he found was surprising.

The 1930 census places Suzanne Wilson’s name below her husband’s, who is

listed as Head of Household (United States Department of Commerce-Bureau of the

Census 1930a, 1930b). She is listed as being born in the British West Indies, as are both

of her parents. She was thirty-one when they married in 1916 and her occupation is listed

as that of an artist. He was born in Sierra Leone about 1887, as were his parents, and he is

listed as an Episcopal clergyman; no children are in the census record.

If she came from Nigeria to Jamaica with African names it is likely that they

would have been replaced with Jamaican ones, as occurred to other Africans who moved

there, creating difficulty in tracing her birth surname.35

Both Ogunjami’s nephew Francis H Bowen, and her cousin Lena Benford

(Beckford?—the writing in the census page is not clear) are listed on the same page as is

Suzanna Wilson—all three as members of Matthew Wilson’s household. Both Bowen

27

and Benford are cited as having been born in the British West Indies and so are their

parents, and both were unmarried according to the census. Francis came to the United

States in 1919 and Lena in 1917. What Ogunjami wrote of Francis Bowen in the Harmon

Foundation archives papers is consistent with the census record.36

In the 1920 United State Census37 Ogunjami is listed as Suzanna Wilson and her

parents were born in the British West Indies, while her husband was born in Africa, as

well as his parents. She had no occupation and he is listed as a priest and clergyman.

Francis Bowen and Lena Benford are found under Matthew Wilson as before. The only

discrepancy is that Ogunjami is listed as coming to the United States in 1906, while in

the1930 census the date is 1910. Not knowing her original surname, it is impossible to

locate her in the 1910 census.

Ogunjami’s New York City marriage certificate, (New York, State of 1915)

provides the wedding date as 1915 and not 1916, as does the census. It lists her as

widowed, having had the married name of Suzanna Maclean Her maiden name is

Suzanna M. Scott, her father’s name is Benjamin Scott and her mother’s maiden name is

Sarah Reid. This was Matthew’s first marriage; he is listed as being born in Sierra Leone,

W. Africa while she is as born in Jamaica, B.W.I.

The census and marriage records contradict Ogunjami’s and the Harmon

Foundations statements about her place of birth, which the foundation accepted and

publicized. Her story of Nigerian and Igbo ancestry appears untrue, unless she had some

reason to hide her Nigerian past in the United States. Since her husband is listed as from

Sierra Leone in the 1930 census and as from Africa in the 1920 census, I do not know

28

why, if she was born in Nigeria, this is not indicated. Possible explanations are that she

came to Jamaica illegally or as an unregistered infant or small child, and her parents

changed their names and hers and birth- place for reason the parents did not wish to

reveal to the census takers, although Ogunjami appears to have accepted the published

claims of her Nigerian birth. That her parents, her cousin and her nephew are also listed

as born in the British West Indies does not strengthen Ogunjami’s assertion of Nigerian

ancestry. On the other hand it is not impossible that she had Igbo ancestry at some time in

the past as Nigerians did migrate to Jamaica, and some of them had histories of moving

back and forth between the two countries.

If Olayinka was of first generation birth in Jamaica from Nigeria, this might make

an African birth claim easy to develop. If she was of Igbo birth, why did she not take an

Igbo name as an artist rather than her husband’s Yoruba one from Sierra Leone, unless

she so wished to please him? Her Masters Thesis does not discuss Igbo arts and crafts,

granted that there was only a little in print on it at the time she prepared her thesis, and

what existed might have been beyond her scholarly ability to locate. That the Harmon

Foundation would develop the idea of her Nigerian birth on its own does not seem likely.

More reasonable is that it simply accepted her word and was delighted to have her “on

board,” an interesting addition to their African American artists. It appears likely that she

only wrote of her origin some years after she had obviously told it to the foundation,

since they had used that information as early as in an 1928 exhibition (Harmon

Foundation 1928).

29

Why falsify her origin? Was it to make herself more attractive in her artistic work

and as a person? Would it not have been enough to represent herself as a Black Jamaican

artist living in the United States in the context of modern African American art, where

she would have still been a rarity? If she was untruthful, her husband, a priest, would

surely have known of it, with all the publicity over her exhibitions.

.The evidence suggests then that she was not the first African modern artist to

exhibit in the United States. Whoever did so exhibited a later date. If she was not born in

Nigeria the historical record needs to be clarified of published misstatements that began

in 1928 and have continued almost to this day. If she was truly born in Nigeria this must

be somehow discovered beyond my scholarly resources. The problem of knowledge, both

academic and public, presented here is serious.

Yet Ogunjami’s artistic life, wherever she was born, is fascinating. She was

clearly a person of ambition with strong goals, one dedicated to knowing and to changing

African culture. She exhibited genuine interest in Africa in her two interviews for the

Harmon Foundation, in some her artwork which had African references, such as her oil

painting Nupe Princess, in her Master’s Thesis, in her marriage to an African, in her

contacts with Africans at the Chapel of the Messiah, in her wish to improve African

education, and in her desire to go and live in Africa. She certainly knew more about

Africa than Mary Beattie Brady, the Harmon Foundation’s Director and her assistant,

Evelyn S. Brown, so that they could believe her story without questioning her birth, what

age she was when she left Africa, who traveled with her to Jamaica, did she go there to

existing relatives and so on. Or, if such questions were asked there is no record of it in the

30

archives. I suspect that the Harmon Foundation personnel were entranced to have an

“African” in their midst, and a educated and artistic one. In any case, I am not fully

convinced that the census and marriage records present the full picture.

If not of African birth but Jamaican born, was Ogunjami the first modern

Jamaican artist to exhibit in the United States? There were Jamaicans who came to this

country over time,, and so one or more of them may have been a modern artist. However,

David Boxer’s writings on early Jamaican artists (1982a:3-13; 1982b:10-17) and two

National Gallery of Jamaica publication (1976, 1978), make no mention of Ogunjami.

Email enquiries at six modern art galleries in Jamaica were negative; none had heard of

her or seen or work. She was apparently unknown in Jamaica as an artist, although she

eventually returned there from Sierra Leone and died there.. The earliest Jamaican artist

exhibiting outside of Jamaica was Edna Manley, who first showed three bronze statues in

England with the London Group in 1928, and had a solo exhibition at the Goupil Gallery

in London the next year (W. Brown 1975:166, 1996). In those years colonial Jamaica’s

main links were to Britain and not to the United States. Ogunjami if born in Jamaica, was

possibly the first Jamaican modern artist to exhibit in the United States, doing so the

same year the Manley exhibited in London.

Freetown and Jamaica

In 1934 the Reverend Wilson, lacking a clergy’s position and with the Anglican

religious officials in Sierra Leone urging him home, wrote to the Episcopal Bishop of

New York that he was “desirous to return to my Native Church. This I made known to

31

the bishop about four years ago.”38 Ogunjami was also longing to go to Africa. The

couple arrived in Freetown in 1935, where he was soon became involved with Anglican

Church activities,39 while she created and exhibited art and took part in her husband’s

religious activities. A comment in a review of the Delphic Studios exhibition states: “The

artist expect to return to Africa soon to do research work in the field of West African art

with a view of presenting her findings” (Artist from Nigeria Shows Art 1924:23).

The Harmon Foundation maintained contact with Ogunjami in Freetown between

1935 and 1941, through which we learn that one of her aims was to begin a school in

Freetown to “build strong character and to train our girls and boys, not only how to use

their brains but their hands also, and to fit them for future useful service (S. Wilson 1935;

Barnwell 1999:218). She established a school in Freetown modeled on the concept of

industrial education developed at the Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes in the United

States, which she probably became familiar while studying at Teachers College. This

form of education arose for the training of former slaves after the civil war at a time when

American industry was expanding and required skilled working hands. This educational

system, which peaked in the 1890s (Moore 2003:20-210), was led by Booker T.

Washington among others; for Africa it was stimulated by a large survey of its

educational needs by Jones (1922). “This form of education was believed by some to

create happy and productive workers for the business trades, such as carpentry, rather

than having students learn Greek and Latin” (Moore 2003:21).40 This was a dramatically

different approach to education than that in Sierra Leone’s British colonial schools,

which focused on the classics, Greek, Latin, English literature and European history.

32

Ogunjami’s school Prospectus states: “We have Chapel, St. Matthew

(Archdeacon Wilson’s Memorial) through which the spiritual life of the Pupils is looked

after…. Among the subjects taught in the various Departments are the following: English

and History, Languages, Mathematics, Science, etc., Physical Education, Special Subjects

(Extra Fees) consult the Directress: Arabic, Hebrew, Instrumental Music, Commercial

Course, Home Economics and the Arts.” (S. Wilson 1935). She later began another

school twelve miles outside of Freetown in a rural village setting where unlike Freetown

no British educational system existed. Art was apparently taught in these schools,

whether by Ogunjami or not is not known.

Ogunjami’s was also active in creating and exhibition art in Freetown. She was

probably the first modern artist of African ancestry--whether born in Nigeria or Jamaica--

to create and exhibit modern art in Sierra Leone. Other modern artists did not appear inn

Sierra Leone until the 1950s (Ottenberg n.d.:chapt. 3). Barnwell writes that there “she

pursued printmaking: however most of her time and energies were dedicated to religious

service” (Barnwell 1999:218). In a 1938 letter to Brown at the Harmon Foundation,41

Ogunjami wrote from Freetown: “I am hoping to go to Liberia soon to exhibit some of

the paintings I have here and to make a study of the art of that region. However, I shall

send you what I can. Possibly two or three pieces will be included.” There is no record of

these works in the Harmon Foundation file and whether she followed up on her Liberian

plans is not known. There is evidence that she had solo exhibitions in Freetown in 1935

and 1937 (Harmon Foundation 1937b). In 1936 she wrote from Freetown to the

Executive Director of the Harmon Foundation, Mary Beattie Brady: “I held an exhibition

33

of my paintings here in December. The Colonial Secretary, in the absence of the

Governor, declared the exhibition opened by his presence. Individuals still come to view

the paintings. I did not sell any, because as yet the people are not educated up to that

standard; hence I did not expect that any would have been sold. It was only to give

inspiration. In the history of the colony, such a thing had never been done before, and

indeed, as far as I know, not on the entire West Coast.42 It was a steady, continuous crowd

of people everyday for the ten days in which it was opened to the public. It seemed so

wonderful to them. It is my intention, if I am able to use the school as an Art Center. This

will take time and much work, but there must always be a beginning in everything. It

even takes time to make people see how very necessary it is for them to use their hands.”

43

It is likely that Ogunjami had influential art patrons in Sierra Leone—British,

Krio or others—to support her organizing several art exhibitions, whether they purchased

any of her works or not, as her husband was a Krio, then the elite African group in Sierra

Leone. He was also an Anglican clergyman, a member of Sierra Leone’s politically

dominant Christian faith, and his late father had been an Archdeacon. While Ogunjami

undoubtedly moved in circles of influence in Sierra Leone and had patrons who

supported her exhibitions, she apparently was unable to sell her work. The difficulty of

selling modern African art in Freetown was to occur to the Sierra Leone modern artists at

a later date (Ottenberg n.d.).

In 1960 Burney-Nicol wrote of Ogunjami Brown: “She ended up returning to

Jamaica and for all we know it is believed she is dead. Her husband, Reverend Wilson is

34

also dead…. I have heard my mother talk many a time of a Mrs. Wilson, the artist, wife

of Reverend Ogunjami Wilson, who held an open air art exhibition of her paintings in

Freetown around 1934-1935.”44 Burney-Nicol does not mention in her letters or writings

ever meeting Ogunjami or seeing her work, but her husband Eddie Davies wrote to

Brown: “I remember her as a schoolboy having to pass her house to school and going to

one or two exhibitions of her work in King Town where she then lived and in

Wilberforce Memorial Hall. The Revd Mr. Wilson was curate of our church for some

years after his return from America. Mr. Wilson died sometime in the late thirties and I

left home for Nigeria in 1939 and have never since then found out what became of Mrs.

Wilson.”45 Nevertheless, the record indicates that Matthew Wilson was still alive in

Freetown in 1952 (Crockford’s Clerical Directory 1951-1952 1952:1426)

In Sierra Leone Ogunjami was a pioneer in modern art and her educational

activities were radical, while in the United States her art was conventional and her

educational ideas were becoming out of date.

Inquiries in Freetown in April 2008 with Anglican Church officials, particularly

the Rev. Canon Randall, St. George’s Cathedral, and with modern artists in the city,

including the senior artists Louise Metzger and Kosonike Koso-Thomas, revealed no

awareness of a Suzanna Ogunjami or a Suzanna Wilson, or of her art, and elicited

surprise that she had existed. The Sierra Leone National Museum, which did not open

until 1959, owns none of her work. Its acting director had no knowledge of her, nor could

she find any record of her, although the museum is not known for the accuracy of its

record keeping. Joe Opala, an American anthropologist, who has spent some twenty years

35

in Freetown until the recent civil war and who was interested in Sierra Leone modern art,

never heard of her.46 Suzanna Ogunjami, sadly, left no artistic tradition in Sierra Leone.47

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41

NotesMIR: Miranda Olayinka-Burney, also known as Olayinka Burney-Nicol.ESB: Evelyn S Brown, Associate Director, the Harmon Foundation.SW: Suzanna Wilson [also known as Suzanna Ogunjami].MBB: Mary Beattie Brady, Executive Director, the Harmon Foundation.Ep. Dio. NYC Archives: The Episcopal Diocese of New York, New York City.

42

Additional Photographs

Entrance Sign at the Delphic Studios

Still Life at the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934) Probably oil on canvas

From the outtake of the film A Study of Negro Artists (1937)

43

Suzanna Ogunjami: Extra FiguresNude Study. At the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934)

Probably oil on canvasFrom an outtake of the film A Study of Negro Artists (1937)

44

Portarit Study at the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934)Probably oil on canvas

An Oouttake from the Film A Study of Negro Artists (1937)

45

The Reverend M. N.O. Wilson looking at pictures at the opening of the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934)

From an outtake of the film A Study of Negro Artists (1937)

Suzanna Ogunjami at the opening of the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934)An outtake of the from A Study of Negro Artists (1937)

46

Suzanna Ogunjami at the opening of the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934)From an outtake of the film A Study of Negro Artists 1937)

The Reverend M. N. O. Wilson at the opening of the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934)From an outtake of the film A Study of Negro Artists (1937)

47

At the opening of the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934)An outtake from the film A Study of Negro Artists (1936)

At the opening of the Delphic Studios Exhibition (1934)Frpm an outtake of the film A Study of Negro Artists (1937)

48

1 I thank Janet Stanley, Head Librarian, Warren M. Robbins Library, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, for reading two drafts of this manuscript and for the countless times that she has assisted me with references and ideas for this paper. Also thinks to Dr Amy Staples, Curator of the Elliott Elisofon Photographic Archives at the same museum, whose assistance in this project was considerable. Chris Eden, Seattle, kindly enhanced certain photograph. Professor Steven Nelson, University of California, Los Angeles, helpfully called to my attention certain crucial information pertinent to this paper. Emeritus Professor Maureen Warner-Lewis, Department of Literatures in English, University of the West Indies, made valuable suggestions on a draft of this paper and provided very useful information. Randall Burkett, Curator of African American collections, Emory University, also was extremely helpful. Wayne H. Kempton, Archivist, The Episcopal Diocese of New York, New York City, provided me with very useful files.2 In the 1950s and until 1967 the Harmon Foundation gathered information on what they called African contemporary art and its artists, exhibiting and arranging to sell their artwork in the United States. See the summary publication, Evelyn S Brown 1966. Ogunjami is not listed in it.. From the late 1920s until the 1950s the Harmon Foundation dealt with African American contemporary artists in much the same way. For some ears it also offered annual prizes to African American artists. Brady 1933:144; Harmon Foundation, n.d.(b).3 ESB to MIR, Nov. 10, 1960. 4 MIR to ESB Nov. 23, 19605 According to the Yoruba scholar, Rowland Abiodun, Ogunjami is a Yoruba word, literally meaning “Ogun (the Yoruba God of Iron) fought me.” Abiodun believes that the term is a contraction of Ogunjafunni, meaning “Ogun fights on my behalf.” Among the Krio of Sierra Leone, Yoruba and other West African words are popularly employed as an extra or “house name.”6 For Igbo culture and society see Falola (ed.) 2005; Isichei 1973.7 For the father’s theological background see Crockford’s Clerical Directory, 1921-1922.8 Wilson 1934b:1. He arrived in the United States in 1910, according to the 1920 U.S National Census, and the List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States: S.S. Philadelphia. Sailing from Southampton, October 8, 1910. Copy in Ep. Dio, NYC Archives files.9 Spitzer 1974, Wyse 1989.10 Ogunjami n.d.,:1-2; S. Wilson 1928.11 Figs. 1 and 3 are from the Harmon Foundation, Suzanna Ogunjami File, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, size, dates and photographers unknown. Figs 2, 4, and 5 are from the Still Photograph Section, U.S. National Archives, College Park, Maryland, size, dates and photographers unknown. Figs. 6-11 are still photographs extracted from a tape version of the 1934 outtakes of a black and white Harmon Foundation film, The Study of Negro Artists, released in 1937. James Latimer Allen was the film’s, photographer. Size and dates of still pictures drawn from the tape are unknown, except that they were created by 1934.. The tape and film are at the Moving Film Section, United States National Archives, College Park, Maryland. Figure 2 is used by permission of the Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia, where the painting is located. All of the paintings depicted here were probably in oil on canvas. Dimensions are unknown except for fig. 2. Exact dates are also no known, although most of these works were probably created in the early 1930s.12 Barnwell 1999,:218, states that her B.A. classes were “in fine arts and textiles.” Also see Ogunjami n.d.:1.13 The only modern African artist who might have exhibited in the United States at such an early date was the Nigerian, Aina Onabolu. There is no indication that he did so, confirmed in an email of January 2009 from Chika Okeke-Agulu. In the 1920s and 1930s Onabolu was in art training in England, briefly in France, and was establishing art education in the Lagos schools. There is no record that he had contact with the Harmon Foundation in that period. In 1950, sponsored by the Harmon Foundation and the British Information Service he exhibited at Howard University and at a number of other eastern Unite States’ locations. Ogbechie 2006:105-106; Dike and Oyelola 1999; Oloidi 1991.14 New Jersey State Museum n.d.; Harmon Foundation 1971 (1935): 16-17, 53.15 Scanlan, ed., c.1993:141. Among the sixteen African American artists in the exhibition were Richmond Barthé, William H. Johnson, Malvin Gray Johnson, Archibald J. Motley Jr., Charles Sebree, Laura Wheeler Waring and Hale Woodruff, some of the best known African American artists of the time. Ogunjami was in excellent company.16 The Topeka Daily Capital of March 14, 1937 stated: “The Exhibition of Negro Art at Mulvane Museum has received favorable comment regarding both the work of the Kansas Vocational school and the collection of oil paintings from the Harmon foundation.”17 ESB to SW, April 13, 193718 African Artists of Our Time 1966.19 Cederholm 1973:314; Harley 1970:53; DuSable Museum 1970, no pagination; Devree 1934. Chika Okeke-Agulu, in an article on southeastern Nigerian artists wrote: “An American trained Eastern Nigerian artist, Suzanna Ogunjami .was one of the first African artists to exhibit and sell her work in the country in the early thirties. Okeke 1971:40.20 A well known, premier department store.21 Said to be at Sarah Lawrence College Art Gallery. However, Dr. Michelle Gilbert, who has taught there, inquired and informed me that it could not be located, perhaps since works from the gallery have been loaned out to faculty members

over the years and full records have not been kept.22 SW to ESB, February 14, 1938.23 The painting is said to be in he Carl van Vechten Gallery at Tuskegee University (Barnwell 1999:218), but the gallery director was unable to locate it. I have used the Harmon collection photograph.24 Probably Alexander Dobkin (1908-1975), who was born in Italy and studied art in the United States and became a well-known artist. He studied under Clèmentè Orozco, which may have been the link between Suzanna Ogunjami and the Delphic Studios.25 Evelyn S. Brown was the Main Director, Jules V.D. Bucher was Director of Photography. Allen was a well-known photographer of African American society personages. The film and its outtakes in the U.S. National Archives, Moving film Section, College Park, Maryland. The film, but not the outtakes, is available on the Werb at http://www.archive.org/details/study _of_negro_ artists .26 There are nine outtakes to reel 6, with the images relating to Ogunjami on outtakes 4, 5, 8 and 9. Each outtake includes a hodgepodge of images, most of which have nothing to do with Ogunjami. Figures 7 through 11 produced by Chris Eden, in Seattle using a VHS copy that this author made of a VHS copy of the original film at the U.S. National Photographic Archives,, thus their poor quality.. I was unable to obtain access to the original film, which was under preservation.27 ESB to MIR, Nov. 10, 1960. 28 MSB to Alain Locke, Jan. 15, 1935. at least two copies of this letter exist. One is in Locke’s files at the Howard University Archives, where there is also a black and white reproduction of Ogunjami’s Full Blown Magnolia, but no comments on it or reply from Locke to Brady.. The other copy is in the Brady’s file in the Harmon Foundation paper at the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. By 1929 Locke had made contact with her, and apparently served as an informal adviser. Stewart 1983:159 and p. 478, ft.2; Locke 1983 (1931), 174. Arthur Schomburg also assisted the Harmon Foundation .Henderson 1933:176.29 From the archives in he Episcopal Diocese, New York City.30 S. Wilson 1920:91. The Chapel had a “colored congregation” and has “done much for African students and others in New York” (Chapel of the Messiah 1923:26. This was still the era of racial segregation.31 M. Norman Wilson 1919:399. He wrote other articles on the Chapel with the same title: M. Norman Wilson 1921:10-11, and there are two unsigned articles with the title of “Chapel of the Messiah,” 1922 and 1923. 32 “Passing of the Chapel of the Messiah 1926:7; an unidentified newspaper article in the Ep, Dio. NYC Archives entitled “Church of the Messiah Burned,” stating that “Fr. Wilson lived in the church building and suffered the loss of his belongings.”33 Letter from M. N. Ogunjami Wilson to the Bishop of New York Diocese, Oct.30,1933. Typed copy of a letter to R. M. Pott, New York City from an unsigned sender in the files of Ep, Dio. NYC Archives.34 Various papers in Ep. Dio. NYC Archives under the file: New Rochelle St. Simon’s Mission 1927-1936.35 Email from Maureen Warner-Lewis to Ott., Aug. 29, 2009.36 Bowen immigrated to the United States in 1919, and overlapped in time at Columbia University me as Ogunjami. For his career, see Pelican Annual 1955:151, published in Mona, Jamaica.37.United States Department of Commerce-Bureau of the Census, 1920.38 Letter from M.N. Ogunjami Wilson to Bishop Gilbert, Sept. 8, 1934.39 The details of his church activities in West Africa are to be found in Crockford’s Clerical Directory. 1951-1952. His work took him to Bathurst (now Banjul) in The Gambia in 1941-1945. It is not clear whether the artist went there with him, but it is likely, given her devotion to church work.40 Moore 2003:21,, 61-62, 71-72. This American educational approach was criticized b y African Americans, such as W.E. B. Dubois and others, as setting too low educational goals, as it was probably viewed in Sierra Leone by its educators,, more used to the British Model. Also see Meier 1963:95, 196, 199.41 SW to ESB, Feb. 14, 1938.42 Ogunjami was unaware that this honor belongs to the Nigerian artist, Aina Onabolu in Lagos in 1920.43SW too MBB, March 21, 1936. 44 MIR to ESB, Nov. 23, 1960.45 Davies to EAB, Nov. 15, 1960.46 Email, Opala to Ott, July 2, 2008.47 The paucity of the biographical record on Suzanna Ogunjami or Suzanna Wilson, and the scarcity of her art reported on in this essay should not be attributed to a lack of effort on the author’s part. I checked with most African American colleges and universities east of the Mississippi and several west of it that had a museum and only the Hampton University Museum was able to supply a painting. The library at Howard University, as well as its Museum had none of her art. Responses were negative from the Studio Museum in Harlem, the DuSable Museum in Chicago and the New Jersey State Museum. In Washington, D.C. the National Museum of African Art, the Anacostia Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts had none of her work. At the Schomburg Library branch of the New York City Library, I found no reference to her in the New Amsterdam News, The New Age, and the New York Times. The Art and

Artifacts Division of the Schomburg Library and its Photographs and Prints Division have no material on Ogunjami. I checked numerous bibliographies on African American artists; published work on the Harmon Foundation and on the Harlem Renaissance lead to nothing. The National Gallery of Jamaica did not know of her. The Jamaica State Art Center and “Painters from Jamaica” in linkism—the art directory on the internet, yielded no results. In a brief discussion with the eminent senior African American artist, David Driscoll at the opening of is exhibition at the Greenhut Gallery in Portland, Maine, on September 4, 2008, he indicate that he had no knowledge of Ogunjami. Nor could I find anything on her in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, or the Archives of the Episcopal Church, Austin, Texas,.