Bruce Onobrakpeya (b. 1932, Nigeria)
Leopard in Cornfield, 1984
Color lithograph
Private collection (cat. 60)

The inspiration for Leopard in a Cornfield is autobiographical. As a boy, Bruce Onobrakpeya enjoyed running through a farm near a shrine that housed a massive iphri, where a youngster would never dare venture. He was startled by a leopard painted in the exterior of the shrine building. What he remembered was the vision of overwhelming size and vivid colors.

"Onobrakpeya did not know how old he was then. But for a child, there is no difference between a living leopard and a leopard on a wall, guarding a shrine entrance. He feared the beast might attack. And he cried, tugging at his mother's feet for protection. Many years have now passed and still that memory strongly abides. This same leopard, like an imprisoned genie, exploded full-blown out of his mind. Now he knows him. He is a beast, but he tamed him, and let him roam freely in the grassy wild with tantalizing birds flying above him."

--Paul Chike Dike and Pay Oyelola, eds., The Zaria Art Society, p. 186

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