Susanne Wenger (b. 1915-2009) can be considered as one of the most versatile artists in modern Austrian art; furthermore, her artistic accomplishments also significantly contributed to the canon of modern Nigerian art.
Wenger attended the School of Applied Arts and Crafts in Graz (1927-1930) and the Graphic and Experimental Institute in Vienna (1932) before studying at the Visual Art Academy in Vienna (1933-1937). She was one of the founders of the Vienna Art-Club in 1946.
In 1949 she met the German linguist Ulli Beier in Paris – an encounter that marks a turning point in her life and artistic work. They left Europe together and settled in Nigeria in 1950, where S. Wenger, unlike U. Beier, lived and worked until her death.
She contributed to various exhibitions, including the Mbari Mbayo Clubs, cultural centres for writers, artists and musicians, in Ibadan and Oshogbo. Above all, however, her engagement with the Yoruba religion and culture played a crucial role in her artistic development: Wenger was initiated into Yoruba religion and became an important spiritual reference for the worshippers in Oshogbo.
In the early 1960s she founded the New Sacred Art Movement, a movement of young Yoruba artists such as Adebisi Akanji (born in 1930s), Buraimoh Gbadamosi (1938 – 2014) and Kasali Akangbe (born in 1940s) who dedicated themselves to the restoration of the Sacred Grove – a divine forest along the banks of the river Osun in Osogbo and listed as UNESCO World Heritage since 2005 – and implemented their own creative artistic forms of expression.
Wenger and her colleagues mainly used cement to create flowing, dynamic and spontaneous sculptures, which were dedicated to the Yoruba deities. Following S. Wenger’s belief that Art is Ritual, the restored shrines and created sculptures should claim to be new, innovative and therefore modern – otherwise they did not serve the gods.
Numerous solo and group exhibitions, both in Austria and internationally, presented the works of Wenger. The Goethe Institut in Lagos showed Susanne Wenger: Batiks and Oil Paintings in 1984, six years later Susanne Wenger. Ein metaphysisches Abenteuer was shown at Iwalewahaus in Bayreuth, Germany. The 2001-2002 exhibition The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945-1994, curated by Okwui Enwezor featured her Adire batik Yemoja (1958).
