Late Dora Akunyili’s daughter emerges most valuable female artists of all nationalities

 

Maureen Aguta

 

Daughter of late Professor Dora Akunyili, Nigeria’s most celebrated director general of National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Njideka Akunyili Crosby is currently the most valuable Nigerian artist of all time, and among the most valuable female artists of all nationalities, with her work ‘The Beautyful One’ sold by Christie’s in Nov 2022 for $4.74 million.

The same work of the 40 years old had sold for $3.075 million in Mar 2017 (an increase of $1.7 million for the delighted collectors); that is a profit of $1.7 million over a period of five years.

Her second most expensive work, ‘Bush Babies’, was sold for $3.375 million in Mar 2018 by Sotheby’s.

Her first work, an untitled piece, sold for $93, 750 in Sept 2016.

Two months later, in Nov 2016, her work ‘Drown’, a work showing her reclining with her husband, smashed all expectations by selling for $1.1 million.

She has had 22 works sold at auction over the last 7 years with auction prices achieved ranging from $100,000 to $4.474 million.

In, 2016, Njideka Akunyili Crosby was name one of the Financial Times ‘Women of the Year’.

She was awarded the prestigious $625,000 MacAurthur Fellowship ‘Genius Grant’ in 2017.

In 2018, Njideka designed the mural that wrapped the Museum of Contemporary Art, Grand Avenue, Los Angeles.

Her work “Thriving and Potential, Displaced (Again and Again and…)” (2021) was commissioned for the Met’s exhibition, ‘Before Yesterday We Could Fly’.

Her work was included in the 2022 exhibition Women Painting Women at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Her work was also featured in the National Portrait Gallery’s 2023 Kinship exhibit.