A Life Spent Opening Doors

With the passing of Olaseinde Odimayo, Nigerian art has lost one of its indispensable behind-the-scenes builders, a man who devoted a lifetime to connecting artists with collectors, vision with patronage, and talent with opportunity. Okechukwu Uwaezuoke writes 

Who among those gathered last December to celebrate Olaseinde Odimayo’s 75th birthday could have imagined that the occasion would feel, only a few months later, like a farewell?

The gathering brought together collectors, gallery owners, artists, curators, friends and admirers, all paying tribute to a man whose influence on Nigerian art was immense, even if much of his work happened behind the scenes. Odimayo was not an artist. He was one of those indispensable figures without whom artists often struggle to find their audience.

His passing on June 17 closes a chapter that stretches back to a time when there was hardly an art market to speak of in Nigeria.

Artists occupy centre stage. Dealers rarely do. Yet anyone familiar with the evolution of Nigeria’s art ecosystem knows how much it owes to figures like Odimayo. For decades, he moved quietly between studios, galleries and collectors’ homes, introducing people to artists they might otherwise never have encountered and persuading professionals that living with art was worth the investment.

Talking to Odimayo was often like opening an archive. He seemed to remember everything: exhibitions long forgotten, collectors who bought works before anyone knew the artists’ names, and paintings that had passed through several hands before finding their way into important collections.

His fascination with art began early. Family members recalled that, as a child growing up in Lagos, he was constantly making things with his hands. He fashioned paper boats and sailed them through rain-filled gutters, carefully storing them afterwards in shoeboxes. He also carved miniature replicas of the passenger ferries owned by his father, John Feyisara Odimayo, whose entrepreneurial exploits were already well known in Lagos.

Yet art dealing was hardly an obvious destination. After earning a degree in German from the University of Ibadan, he entered the corporate world and prospered, eventually becoming managing director of a company owned by his elder brother.

Then he walked away from it.

His decision to pursue a future in art baffled many around him. Nigeria’s art market was still in its infancy. Galleries were few, collectors fewer, and there was no established path for becoming an art dealer.

His elder brother advised caution. Odimayo chose otherwise.

“I let my heart lead me,” he would later say.

A defining moment came in 1982 when he met Folabi Kofo Abayomi. The two men discovered a shared passion and soon developed a routine. On Fridays, they visited artists’ studios across Lagos, talking, observing and learning. What they encountered was a recurring problem. Artists knew how to make art. Reaching collectors was another matter entirely.

Their response was the now-historic Treasure House Salon Show of April 1982. Modest in scale but significant in impact, it arrived at a time when Lagos had lost several important galleries and opportunities for artists were shrinking. The exhibition demonstrated that there was still an audience for Nigerian art and that new collectors could be cultivated.

The years that followed required perseverance. There were few precedents to follow and even fewer mentors. Odimayo travelled, read extensively, sought advice wherever he could find it and gradually taught himself the business. He once described his generation of dealers as pioneers thrown into deep water without knowing how to swim.

In time, Treasure House Gallery became one of the country’s most respected art institutions. Through it, Odimayo organised exhibitions, advised collectors, promoted artists and documented important collections. He worked closely with artists such as Ben Enwonwu and Ben Osawe and helped place significant works in collections that would later become landmarks of Nigerian cultural life.

Yet the work for which he may be remembered most rarely made headlines.Long before collecting African art acquired the prestige it enjoys today, he spent years persuading bankers, industrialists and professionals to buy Nigerian art. Many collectors who later assembled important collections began with a purchase encouraged by Odimayo. Collection by collection, relationship by relationship, he helped build the patronage network upon which much of today’s Nigerian art world rests.

He was equally passionate about traditional African art and often argued that Africans themselves must play a greater role in preserving their cultural heritage. For him, collecting was never merely an act of acquisition; it was also an act of stewardship.

Those who knew him invariably speak of his generosity. Younger dealers sought his advice. Artists called him for guidance. Many people who benefited from his help never appeared in newspaper stories about Nigerian art, yet they remember the introductions he made, the opportunities he created and the encouragement that arrived precisely when it was needed.

Odimayo, whose remains were laid to rest at Grailland, Iju Hills, Lagos, belonged to a generation that helped build the infrastructure of Nigeria’s art world from the ground up.

For more than four decades, he travelled the uncertain road of art dealing in Lagos with conviction and quiet determination. Nigerian art is richer for it. Long after his passing, his influence will remain embedded in the collections he helped shape, the artists he championed, and the market he helped build. Few art dealers leave behind a visible body of work. Odimayo left something else: a network of relationships and opportunities that will continue to resonate throughout the Nigerian art landscape for years to come.

Meanwhile, the local art community is planning a night of tributes in his honour on Wednesday, July 15, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Harbour Point Event Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.