HPS Magazine

Toyin Ojih Odutola conjures a world that might have been

Amy Crawford – Contributing Writer

Acclaimed for her life-size pastel and charcoal portraits, Toyin Ojih Odutola now offers up a world so rich the writer Zadie Smith has compared it to a “novel of high society written by an African Edith Wharton.” The pictures appear in The UmuEze Amara Clan and the House of Obafemi, a new book tracing the imagined history of two fictional noble families in a Nigeria very different from the country where the 35-year-old artist was born. In her alternative history, the economic and social devastation wrought by the trans-Atlantic slave trade and European colonialism never occurred, and neither did Nigeria’s persecution of homosexuality. Instead, Ojih Odutola’s aristocratic families, joined by the marriage of two sons, take their wealth and status for granted. She hopes to inspire people who view these pictures to imagine a better future. “The speculative can be a bridge,” says the artist, who lives in New York City, “and the process of creating it an emancipatory act.”

Imagine yourself in these scenes and enjoy a selection of landscape paintings and artwork inspired by nature’s beauty.

• Among the Sierra Nevada, CaliforniaSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Rainbow Falls, Inyo National ForestSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Sunset Cloud, Green River, WyomingSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Mountain Landscape at SunsetCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• LandscapeSmithsonian American Art Museum
• LandscapeCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• LandscapeSmithsonian American Art Museum
• LandscapeCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• El CapitanSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Evening Glow at Mono LakeSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Forest SceneCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• Mountain Valley, JamaicaCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• Photographic History Collection: Ansel AdamsNational Museum of American History
• LandscapeSmithsonian American Art Museum
• California Spring LandscapeSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Landscape at TwilightCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• Oaks and Rocks–San Luis ObispoSmithsonian American Art Museum
• LandscapeCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• Gates of the YosemiteSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Maine Coast (#34)Smithsonian American Art Museum
• El Capitan, Yosemite ValleySmithsonian American Art Museum
• Red Hills, JamaicaCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
• Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada, from Lone PineNational Museum of American History
• Merced River, Yosemite ValleySmithsonian American Art Museum
• Black Hills with CedarHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
• LandscapeSmithsonian American Art Museum
• New Mexico DesertNational Museum of the American Indian
• Evening Glow at Lyell Fork, Tuolumne MeadowsSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Winter Storm, Yosemite ValleyNational Museum of American History
• LandscapeSmithsonian American Art Museum
• White Branch, Monolake, CaliforniaNational Museum of American History
• Light in the ForestSmithsonian American Art Museum
• Volterra LandscapeHirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
• Across the Hudson Valley at SunsetCooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
  • Yosemite Valley Smithsonian American Art Museum