Aino Oni-Okpaku
Arts and culture appreciation in the country suffered a loss when the demise of Chief (Mrs.) Aino Oni-Okpaku was announced. Oni-Okpaku, a Swedish, who married a Nigerian, was the proprietress of one Nigeria’s oldest arts and culture outlets, Quintessence, in Lagos.
Born January 2, 1939, she died Thursday, December 26, 2019 in Gothenburg, Sweden. She would have been 81 last Thursday. From visual to literary arts and fashion, Quintessence, which she founded with her late husband, Olusegun Gabriel Oni-Okpaku, she impacted the creative industry.
The Quintessence window for arts and culture went beyond commercial and critical appreciations; in the last 10 years, it was involved in expanding artists’ capacity building via international resource programmes. For example, between 2008 and 2015, Quintessence aided artist-in-residence events in Sweden for Lagos-based artists, Dr Kunle Adeyemi, Adeola Balogun and Adewale Alimi.
In mid-2015, Balogun and Alimi were in…
Source: Guardian Newspaper
