Obaluaye Riding a Horse Through the Town, Limited Edition 2015 (E 1/75), Reproduction Print on Paper, 51 x 61 cm

Susanne Wenger (1915 – 2009) was already a celebrated Austrian artist when she moved to Nigeria in 1950, but it was Yoruba mythology that inspired her to express her true spiritual and artistic depth. She attended the School of Applied Arts in Graz, Austria 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. Susanne was profoundly moved by the sanctity of the OsunmOsogbo Grove and became the leading advocate to protect it. For over 40 years, she, along with a group of local artists built phenomenal sculptures and dotted the forest of the Grove with monumental works of art. For Susanne, “Art was an expression of the sacred” rather than a commercial undertaking. This extraordinary family of artists became known as the New Sacred Art Movement, creating one of the most important sculptural landscapes in the world. Financial support for the building of the sculptures came mostly from the sale of her artwork. From the mid 1980’s to 2004, Susanne had many important international exhibitions. Many of her drawings, paintings, silk screen prints and batiks that she created over her 59 years in Nigeria and her early days in Austria are conserved in a purpose built gallery in Krems, Austria. But she left her most important work to Nigeria in the Groves of Osogbo. In 2005 the Osun Osogbo Groves were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in honour of the art it contains and the cultural legacy it embodies. The Adunni Olorisha Trust is dedicated to preserving this remarkable art legacy