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Twins Seven Seven comes from Nigeria and was born in 1944. He is one of the
most well known contemporary African artists. Not only that. He is also a musician,
dancer, teacher, proprietor, politician, general practitioner and the father of more than
fifty children from his 13 wives, and a lot more. He began his career with the Oshogbo
Artists Group, at the time described as the “young savages” of Africa. Since 1960 he has
had exhibitions in Europe, Japan, Australia and in the United States of America where he
won international acknowledgement. His works are exhibited in and acquired by different
great museums of the world. Among these are Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris,
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, the National Museum of African Art in
Washington, D.C., the Philadelphis Museum of Art and the National Modern Gallery in
Lagos. In 2005 the UNESCO honoured him with the Artist For Peace Award, "in
His technique is richly variable and his works mirror his multifacetted media,
passionate personality and the ifluence of the rites and rituals of the Yoruba culture. With
manages to create a universe of humans, animals, deities, Gods and plants. Most of his
later works are dedicated to social and political themes with a critical eye on the Nigerian
politics. Between 17 June to 27 July 2007, Twins Seven Seven’s work is exhibited in the
Galerie in der Promenade in the Bavarian city of Fürth. Most of the pieces are from the
private collection of a local gynaecologist, Dr Klein-Kung, who has known him for decades
and began buying Twins Seven Seven’s work since the late 1960s. This collection is now
offered for sale at the gallery, with prices ranging from 600 Euros to nearly 22000
(twenty-two thousand) Euros per piece. There are drawings, paintings on wood and on
in political exile in the 1970s and 1980s, the artist “lost” his mythological style until returning back to Nigeria
A 2004 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association describes him thus:
worker father and cloth weaver mother; his mother was also a trader in
women’s jewelry and clothing. When he was eight years old his father
died and he moved with his mother to her ancestral village in the
province of Kabba. At age 16 he left school and began the journey that
The first stop was Lagos, where he became a driver-apprentice, but after
attraction; Twins Seven Seven was soon the center of that attraction.
Twins Seven Seven’s (Ibeji Meje Meje) name alludes to the fact that he
was the only survivor in a family that had had seven sets of twins (ibeji
meje). "Taiwo" in his original name indicates that he was the first-born
twin of the set. (The second born of each pair is called "Kehinde";
of the dead twin was embodied in a wooden carving, ere ibeji, and the
surviving twin was responsible for caring for it for as long as it lived.
especially heavy duty in caring for the spirits of all his deceased siblings.
Yoruba people that Twins Seven Seven knew from his own experience.
According to Yoruba belief, abiku is a child who is fated to die not long
after birth. Rebirth into the same family occurs, but this is followed by
early death once again. The cycle continues until the mother brings the
incantations to the spirits, persuades the child spirit to remain with its
identified. The largest single figure in the painting, she sits on an ornate
stool in the foreground holding a twin in her lap, while another sleeps on
her back. At her feet are tiny pictures of twins, and in an upward
doorway is the priest mixing potions, while behind him are throngs of
people, villagers perhaps come to watch the ceremony. To the right are
women arriving with supplies. Throughout the painting are other figures
One need not know the narrative or symbolism behind the work to enjoy the
painting, however. Like all his work, Healing of Abiku Children is exuberant,
The work is big and bold, busy as a marketplace, lush as an autumn forest; it is
textured as the finest arras tapestry. The colors are warm and comforting,
richly burnished, like sun on copper. And they are loud, as attention-getting as
Now considered the most famous representative of the Nigerian Oshogbo school of
painting, Twins Seven Seven’s work is in museums throughout the world. The exhibition
at the Galerie in der Promenade was a colourful presentation with “extras” including
drummers (Akwaaba Group from Cameroon & Ivory Coast), dancers (Ghana & Ivory
Coast) and food (Malian). The most enchanting dancers wearing the traditional Kente and
plenty of „Ashanti Gold“ were Jenny Marie-Madlaine, 5 and her sister Millaine Akuya, 3
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whirling in „Ashanti gold“ from head to ankles: Jenny & Milaine Kouadia
Millaine Akuya and sister Jenny Marie-Madelaine crowned & bedecked in “Ashanti gold”
Happy Mummy Yvonne Manzau Kouadio
the mother, choreographic assistant, costume designer and jeweller of her daughters Jenny and Millaine
“The two are our most precious jewels!” she beams.
Daddy of the enchantresses: Manzau Kouadio
Drummer, Singer & Entertainer, dancing and whirling with a (symbolic) machete and a whisk before Twins’
“Secret Sex House”. His princesses Jenny Marie-Madelaine & Millaine Akuya surely got the rhythm from him,
their adored Daddy!
“My two little precious daughters are my dearest Yvonne and me. That’s we together! God’s wonderful gift to us
and to my whole family, wherever they are in the whole world!”
Aye, aye, Manzau! And the guests to the opening ceremony of the Twins Seven Seven
exhibition did enjoy themselves and their Malian buffet, as the photos below confirm.