Bruce P. O. Onobrakpeya was born in Agbarha-Otor, in the Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria, in 1932.
He is Urhobo – the Urhobos live in the Niger River Delta in southern Nigeria.
He was raised as a Christian but was familiar with the old Urhobo animistic faith through oral traditions. After graduating in 1961 from The Nigerian College of Arts, he taught art at the Old Western Boys High School in Benin City, at Ondo Boys’ High School (his alma mater) and, for many years, at St. Gregory’s College, Lagos, Nigeria. Between 1953 and 1980, he nurtured several generations of art students.
He has worked as a guest teacher and artist-in-residence in Europe and the United States and has participated in over 60 exhibitions in Nigeria and around the world. His works are in many art collections around the world: The Vatican Museum in Rome, The National Museum for African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, The Museum of African Art and Antiquities, NYC and The Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

‘During the movement for independence, in the late 1960s, writers such as Wole Soynika and Chinua Achebe and painters like Onobrakpeya, Uche Okeke and Demas Nwoko were committed to a high standard in the practice of all the arts in Nigeria. Mr. Onobrakpeya has initiated and sponsored an international art centre that includes a museum of folk art as well as a gallery of contemporary African. The Centre is in Agbarha-Otor, Delta State, Nigeria. The Centre has hosted the Harmattan Workshop Series for Visual Artists since its inception in 1998.’

One of Onobrakpeya’s sources of inspiration is the Bible. In 1964 Fr. Kevin Carroll, SMA (Irish Province) commissioned 14 paintings, each 10’ wide by 4’ high, based on the Stations of the Cross for St. Paul’s Church, Ebute-Metta, Lagos, Nigeria. In 1968 Onobrakpeya created 60 illustrations for the Catholic National Catechism in Nigeria. In 1977 his painting The Life of St. Paul was presented to Pope Paul VI for His 80th birthday. In addition to his Catholic works, however, Onobrakpeya produces paintings, prints and sculpture based on animistic religious traditions from the Yoruba and Urhobo peoples.’
Italicized text from the ‘World Art Gallery’ www.worldartgallery.net

Bruce P.O. Onobrakpeya is currently represented in the exhibition Where Gods and Mortals Meet: Continuity and Renewal in Urhobo Art at the National Gallery of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington , DC .
Italicized text from the ‘World Art Gallery ’ www.worldartgallery.net/artists-bruce.htm

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