Elizabeth Olowu

*1938 | Nigeria

Elizabeth Olowu is the daughter of Oba Akenzua II, the King of Benin. She started her tertiary education in Fine Arts in 1966 at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, but the Biafran War caused her to discontinue her university education. In the brief period that she studied at UNN, her artistic skills and academic brilliance earned her the best first year student award in Fine Arts. E. Olowu returned to Benin in 1966 where she taught art at Itohan Girls’ Grammar School until 1976 when she entered the newly established Department of Creative Arts at the University of Benin. She graduated in 1979 as the department’s first sculpture major. She enrolled in the MFA program in sculpture, earning her degree in 1984. She specialised in metal casting and her medium of choice was bronze. Although in 1966 she had an initial stint working with a local metal smith whose foundry was situated opposite Itohan Girls’ Grammar School, her most documented sculptures in metal and cement derived from her studies in Benin between 1976 and 1984.