Goodnight Ben Osaghae, Our Own Edgar Degas

A Tribute by Dipo Kehinde, Artist/Writer

 

Like oil colours that take time to set into a solid coating on virgin canvas, the death of an accomplished Nigerian Artist, Ben Osaghae, has taken time to set on me.

Osaghae’s passage was announced on January 17, 2017, but until today I couldn’t believe it.

Not even after reading posts by prominent artists and connoisseurs announcing the passage on Facebook.

People have said many things about Osaghae. They have tried to present the painter in different frames. But they all appeared to have missed the big picture – Osaghae’s true colours.

They didn’t tell the world that Osaghae was the Edgar Degas of our time.

He was so much like Degas that he eerily chose a year similar to that of the French painter to say goodbye to the world.

Osaghae answered the final curtain call in 2017. Degas did in 1917.

But, like Degas who died at 83, I would have loved Osaghae to live longer. He left at 55.

Like a painterly painted picture, you can’t see Osaghae in all his glories if you are too close to him.

In all my years on the art beat at Concord Newspapers in the early 90s, I watched Osaghae from a distance. I engaged the paintings, not the artist.

But Degas had said it anyway, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

Osaghae was one artist who told the Nigerian story in his own idiom, just like Degas did with the French story.

Osaghae and Degas echoed similar sentiments on their canvases that sing sweet songs with a chorus of complimentary colours. Their paintings were descriptive, not essentially naturalistic. They reflected the changing social and economic environments in their days.

One more thing, Osaghae and Degas approached their compositions from incredible angles.

Check out Osaghae’s ‘The Food League’, ‘Dicing with Death’, ‘Prey and Predator’, and ‘The Sound of Silence’. Then, see Degas’ compositions in ‘Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando’, ‘Dancer Tilting’, ‘The Ballet Rehearsal on Stage’, and ‘Swaying Dancer’.

I classify these artists among the finest and most imaginative craftsmen of their times.

Goodnight Ben Osaghae. Goodnight Sweet Prince of the Palette Art. Nigeria has just lost Edgar Degas.

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