The Nigerian artist Bruce Onobrakpeya was born in 1932 in Agbarha-Otor, a village in Nigeria’s Delta state. In the 1950s he moved to Zaria, a vibrant city in the north, to study fine art at Ahmadu Bello University. Between classes, he met like-minded thinkers Yusuf Grillo, Simon Okeke, Uche Okeke, and Demas Nwoko. Aiming to propel African art into modernity, the friends formed the Zaria Art Society. Member artists combined cultural motifs such as the Igunnu staff and the African mask with the principles of Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstract Expressionism. Onobrakpeya is world renowned for his intricate printmaking and has been a Nigerian national treasure for some time. He is now 90 and this is his first solo show in an American museum. —Elena Clavarino