Uzo Egonu (b. 1931-1996) was born in Onitsha, Nigeria. He immigrated to England in 1945, aged 13, to study art in London at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts and at St Martin’s School of Art. Despite only returning to Nigeria once in the 1970s, his painting and printmaking, which blurred the distinction between abstraction and figuration, continued to recall his strong West African and Igbo heritage and experiences of diaspora and isolation, influenced by his experiences of European travel and modernist art movements.

His works have featured in several posthumous exhibitions, including Uzo Egonu: Past and Present in the Diaspora, Norwich Gallery and Maidstone Library Gallery (1997); Uzo Egonu’s London, Museum of London (2005); No Colour Bar: Black British Art in Action 1960-1990, Guildhall Art Gallery, London (2015). Egonu’s works are held in UK public collections, including the Arts Council Collection, Tate, and V&A, London.