One of Nigeria’s most influential modern artists and art teachers, Professor Yusuf Adebayo Cameron Grillo is dead. He was 87.
A statement signed by Babatunde Grillo on behalf of his family announced the passing of the patriarch.
It stated that he died at the Gbagada General Hospital, Lagos in the early hours of Monday, August 23, and was buried the same day at the Atan Cemetry, Yaba according to Islamic rites.
Yusuf Grillo, who is one of Nigeria’s modernists, was the first president of the Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA).
He was also a member of the Zaria Art Society otherwise known as ‘Zaria Rebels’ which includes eminent printmaker, Bruce Onabrakpeya, the painter-sculptor-architect, Demas Nwoko, and the late Uche Okeke, among others.
He was a member of the Zaria School, a society founded in 1958.
Born in 1934 in the Brazilian Quarter of Lagos, Yusuf Grillo went on to become one of the most influential figures in Nigerian art.
After studying in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, Grillo became the Head of Art and Printing at Yaba College of Technology, holding said office for over twenty-five years.
His mosaics and stained glass commissions can be seen in churches, universities, government buildings across Lagos, and most recently at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos.
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