Quick Facts
Biography
Susanne Wenger, also known as Adunni Olorisha (c. 1915 – 12 January 2009), was an Austrian artist who resided in Nigeria. Her main focus was the Yoruba culture and she was successful in building an artist cooperative in Osogbo.
Biography
Susanne Wenger was born to Swiss and Austrian parents, attended the School of Applied Arts in Graz and the Higher Graphical Federal Education and Research Institute and then studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alongside, among others, Herbert Boeckl.
From 1946, Wenger was an employee of the communist children's magazine " Our Newspaper ", of which the cover of the first edition she designed. In 1947 she co-founded the Vienna Art-Club . After living in Italy and Switzerland in 1949 she went to Paris, where she met her future husband, the linguist Ulli Beier. That same year, after Beier was offered a position as a phoneticist in Ibadan, Nigeria, the couple married in London and emigrated to Nigeria. However, the couple moved from Ibadan to the village of Ede the following year.
Wenger became ill in Nigeria due to tuberculosis, after which she turned to Yoruba religion and later became a Yoruba priestess. She became attracted to the religion after meeting one of the few remaining priests of the religion. Wenger and Beier ultimately divorced, with Wenger later marrying local drummer Ayansola Oniru in 1959, by which time Wenger was establishing herself as active in the revival of the religion. She was founder of the archaic-modern art school "New Sacred Art" and became the guardian of the Sacred Grove of Osun goddess on the banks of the Osun River in Oshogbo.
Legacy/honours
The sculptures that were placed there from the late 1950s onwards, sculptures that were created by her followers and local artists have belonged to the UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2005. For her efforts on behalf of the Yoruba, she was made an oloye of the tribe by the Ataoja of Oshogbo.
Death
On 12 January 2009, Wenger died at age 93 in Oshogbo.
Exhibitions
- 1995: Retrospective of the 80th Birthday, Minoritenkirche Stein an der Donau (outside the Old Town of Krems)
- 2004: On a holy river in Africa, Kunsthalle Krems
- 2006: Susanne Wenger - life with the gods of Africa, Graz City Museum
- 2016: Between the Sweet Water and the Swarm of Bees: A Collection of Works by Susanne Wenger, The Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, Atlanta, GA