Thomas Ona Odulate’s wooden figures still invite a difficult question. Was he mocking the British, or was he simply carving the world that colonial Nigeria placed before his eyes?
The answer is not simple, and that is why his work remains important. Odulate’s carvings of colonial officers, missionaries, European couples, soldiers, lawyers, doctors and other public figures often appear humorous. Their formal clothing, stiff postures, hats, glasses, pipes, desks, books and umbrellas can make them look theatrical. A district officer seated at a desk may seem powerful, but also slightly awkward. A European couple may appear respectable, but also out of place. A colonial official in a carved boat may carry the image of authority, yet also become small enough to be handled, viewed and remembered.
Odulate’s art does not allow an easy conclusion. His figures have often been described as satirical, and some certainly carry a comic sharpness. Yet the most careful reading is that he was not simply ridiculing the British. He was observing a changing society and translating that world into Yoruba sculptural form.
A Yoruba Carver in a Changing Colonial World
Thomas Ona Odulate, also known as Thomas Ona, was a Yoruba woodcarver active in the first half of the twentieth century. Museum records commonly associate him with Ijebu Ode and Lagos, while family linked testimony also connects him strongly with Ikorodu. Because the records do not fully agree on every detail of his origin and working life, the safest historical description is that Odulate was a Yoruba carver whose life and work are linked in different accounts to Ijebu Ode, Lagos and Ikorodu.
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What is clearer is the world he carved. Odulate worked during a period when British colonial rule had reshaped public life in Nigeria. New occupations, uniforms, offices, schools, courts, missions and colonial ceremonies became part of the visible landscape. These were not distant political ideas. They appeared in clothing, posture, transport, furniture, tools and public behaviour.
Odulate turned these visible details into sculpture. His figures included colonial administrators, soldiers, lawyers, doctors, missionaries, butchers, polo players, married couples and even Queen Victoria. He also carved Yoruba subjects, including mothers and children, masked dancers, kings, messengers, hunters, policemen and postmen. Through these subjects, he preserved a society in transition.
Why His Work Was Called Tourist Art
Many of Odulate’s carvings were sold to British buyers and expatriates. Some were commissioned, while others were made in advance and then marketed. Because of this, his work is often placed within the category of early Yoruba tourist art.
That label should be handled carefully. Tourist art can sometimes be wrongly dismissed as simple souvenir production, but Odulate’s carvings were more than decorative objects for foreign buyers. They were commercial works, but they were also historical documents in wood. They show how colonial authority and new social roles appeared when observed by a Yoruba artist.
His work was not traditional in subject matter alone, nor was it fully European in style. It stood between worlds. The people he carved belonged to the colonial and urban public sphere, but the method of representation remained deeply rooted in Yoruba carving traditions.
The Humour in the Figures
The humour in Odulate’s work is difficult to miss. His colonial figures often look formal, stiff and carefully arranged. Their accessories are sometimes as important as their bodies. A helmet, pipe, umbrella, gun, book, desk or pair of glasses becomes a sign of office, rank, education or foreignness.
This careful attention to objects gives the figures their character. Odulate did not need to exaggerate wildly to make a point. The symbols of colonial power already carried their own drama. A pith helmet could speak of authority. A desk could suggest bureaucracy. An umbrella could signal status. A pipe or pair of glasses could mark a certain image of European official life.
To British or European viewers unfamiliar with African sculptural conventions, these figures could easily look like caricatures. They were not made according to European academic realism. They followed Yoruba proportions and visual logic. Their heads, postures and simplified forms belonged to another artistic language. This difference may have made European subjects appear strange to European eyes.
Was He Mocking the British?
The strongest historical answer is cautious. Odulate’s carvings were often read as satirical, and some museum descriptions have used that word. The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge describes one of his colonial administrator figures as part of a body of satirical carvings of administrators and missionaries. At the same time, that same record states that Odulate said his characters were not portraits of specific individuals, but observations of his daily life.
The Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology gives an even clearer explanation linked to William Bascom, who knew Odulate and collected his works. According to that account, although Odulate’s figures seemed satirical or caricature like to some viewers, Odulate told Bascom that his works showed how he viewed the world around him.
This is the important point. Odulate’s work can be humorous without being reduced to mockery. It can appear satirical without proving that the artist’s main intention was political ridicule. It can unsettle colonial authority without needing to be read as a direct anti British statement.
The best interpretation is that Odulate was an observer. His carvings captured the world colonial rule produced, including its officials, clothing, ceremonies and social types. If the result sometimes appears comic, that humour may come from the tension between power and representation. The colonial officer who once looked at Africans as subjects of rule became, in Odulate’s hands, a subject to be looked at.
Yoruba Style and Colonial Subjects
Odulate’s sculptures were pioneering in subject matter, but traditional in style. His figures followed Yoruba sculptural proportions, often giving strong importance to the head. He used traditional carving tools such as the adze and knife. Museum records also describe his use of red and black inks, white shoe polish, natural wood colour and local materials such as kaolin clay.
Many of his figures included separate parts, such as hats, guns, books, mallets, umbrellas, pipes or glasses. This made the carvings more vivid and helped identify the roles being represented. A district officer could be known by his desk and helmet. A missionary could be identified by dress or posture. A professional figure could be marked by books or tools.
These accessories are not small details. They are part of the historical value of the work. They show how colonial society made itself visible through objects. Odulate carved not only people, but also the material signs of power, status, profession and foreignness.
Turning the Colonial Gaze Around
Colonial rule depended heavily on observation. Officials wrote reports. Missionaries wrote accounts. Anthropologists, administrators and travellers described African societies from their own viewpoints. Odulate’s work quietly reversed that direction.
In his carvings, the coloniser became the observed. The officer, the missionary, the European couple and the colonial professional were no longer the ones doing the looking. They became the figures being examined, shaped and interpreted by a Yoruba artist.
This reversal is one reason his work remains powerful. Odulate did not need to write a pamphlet or make an open political declaration. His carvings worked through form, humour and attention. They made colonial power visible in a new way. They reduced large systems of authority into small wooden figures that could be carried, displayed and studied.
Why Odulate Still Matters
Today, Thomas Ona Odulate’s carvings are held in major museum collections, including the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge, the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and the UBC Museum of Anthropology. Their importance lies not only in craftsmanship, but in the questions they continue to raise.
Who has the right to represent power? What happens when the coloniser becomes the subject of African art? Can a work made for foreign buyers still preserve local meaning? Can humour and observation carry historical force even when the artist does not leave behind a written political statement?
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Odulate’s work answers these questions through wood. His figures show colonial Nigeria not through official documents, but through the eye of a Yoruba carver. They preserve the meeting of Yoruba society and British colonial modernity in a form that is small, sharp and memorable.
Thomas Ona Odulate may not have called himself a satirist. The most historically careful reading is that he carved the world around him with intelligence, humour and discipline. His figures may unsettle the colonial gaze, but their deepest value is not in proving that he mocked the British. Their value is in showing that colonial power itself could be watched, shaped, miniaturised and remembered by the people it claimed to rule.
Author’s Note
Thomas Ona Odulate’s carvings are best understood as works of observation, humour, livelihood and historical memory. His colonial figures have often been read as satire, but the strongest records suggest that he saw them as reflections of the world around him rather than direct political attacks. Their lasting power comes from the way they turn colonial authority into something visible, human, awkward and memorable through Yoruba artistic form.
References
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, “Early Tourist Arts of the Yoruba.”
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, object record for Thomas Ona Odulate, “European District Officer.”
UBC Museum of Anthropology, biography record for Thomas Ona Odulate.
British Museum collection record for Thomas Ona Odulate.
Brooklyn Museum collection records for Thomas Ona Odulate.
William Bascom, “Modern African Figurines: Satirical or Just Stylistic?”
Frank Willett, African Art: An Introduction.
Bruno Claessens, “Thomas Ona, a short biography of a Yoruba carver.”
