By Prisca Sam-Duru

Mrs. Morayo Anthonio is the first daughter of the late iconic artist and art teacher, Professor Yusuf Grillo. A structural engineer, Mrs. Anthonio says her father’s gift resonates in his five children, though only one of them, Gboyega Grillo, is a fulltime artist.

Having a father as lovely as Prof. Grillo informed their decision to institute an art museum in his honour. According to her, the GrilloArt, a holding company of what they called the Yusuf Grillo Museum, will be opened for private viewing on August 26, and to the public on August 28, 2023, at his Ikeja residence.

“The museum, which is in his honour, has a gallery, meeting spaces, library for research and more. The space that used to be his workshop will be a gallery space designed to encourage upcoming artists. In the future, we’ll continue to celebrate him by ensuring the museum is used to bring the art world together,” Anthonio said.

Unlike most families where feuds tear children apart once the head of the family departs, Anthonio said she and her four siblings never had any challenge bringing everyone on board. “It wasn’t too much of a challenge because even before daddy passed on, there were talks, especially since mummy went before him, on what to do with estate issues or writing a Will which he never did or just what he wants to happen after he’s gone. We went through various options but he told us ‘It’s your problem, deal with it.’”

So, when the idea of a museum came up, my siblings and I didn’t have problem agreeing. Where there’s love you have no problem moving forward when the head of the family departs.”

Regarding what the museum will showcase during the launch, Anthonio said: “There will be his own personal collection of works of his contemporaries which he collected over the years including those of Kolade Oshinowo, Bruce Onabrakpeya, Dele Jegede, etc. There will also be a little of his works. He wasn’t really keen on the commerce part of art. Daddy was the kind of artist who never kept his works. If you go to galleries or studios of his contemporaries like Oshinowo, you will find his works there. But his collection of works from other artists are what you find in his studio.”

Anthonio said although Prof. Grillo was the art-for-art-sake kind of artist, “the GrilloArt is not an artist but a company which needs the commerce to continue to showcase the art-for-art-sake. It’s going to be a marriage between the two. We are going to be looking for partners to bring in the funds and exposures needed to keep it going, and we welcome interested partners – government, NGOs, private investors, institutions, etc. It’s a business concern, but not strictly a profit-making venture. In other words, it is to give back to the art world; that is at the core of it.”

Mrs. Anthonio further clarified that all activities related to the artworks in the museum under the curatorial guide of Dr. Odunayo Orimolade are purely art-for-arts sake. She said “the areas they’re thinking of as sources of income include space for rent for art-related events, especially for upcoming artists; residencies for artists, especially from the diaspora; library space and archives for researchers who will pay just tokens to have access; meeting spaces for organisations in the art world, and more.

“We are open to partnership between GrilloArt and government. Daddy, having served in the National Council for Art and Culture in the 70s, as well as a lecturer and Head of the Department of Art and Printing at Yaba College of Technology in the 60s, partnerships with the government, organisations and many others will help make the museum a resource centre in the future,” she said.

Throwing more light on how her father’s talent resonates in all five of his children, Mrs. Anthonio disclosed that “out of five, only one is actively practicing art which is Gboyega Grillo but all five have the gift. Maybe the rest of us have buried the talent. But for me, delving into art shows up in other ways. The ways include interior designs, modelling of structures since am a builder. I used to bake and design cakes and I used to enjoy decorating the cakes and working with sugar craft and that gave me a lot of satisfaction. Even in my garden, putting my flowers together, I find expression in that and it’s still that art thing coming up. But I’m not making a living out of that. I didn’t even study it past O’level. But we all can draw.”

Prof. Grillo was seen in the public eye as an artist and a disciplinarian, but for Mrs. Anthonio and her siblings, he was their Prince. “He was daddy. He was my Prince. We used to call him Prince. As children, he told us he was a prince. Whenever he travelled, he’ll come back with tales that he was with Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace, which we believed for a while.

“He was a very humorous person, but you won’t know because he was so quiet but full of jokes when you get close to him.  I remember the times he drove us to school. Usually, he got to a point where he would ask us to bow to the prince and we said no. The next thing, he will step on the brake abruptly and we all kind of bowed. He’ll ask, ‘now will you bow to the prince?’ Those were some of the memories we have of him and he did that for a long time.

“Daddy was also my mentor, and we got along very well. We thought along same line and used to argue a lot about values and God-related issues,” Anthonio said.

Asked if the veteran artist compelled any of his children to make a career choice, she said, “My Prince was not the kind of father to force a career on his children. He was a very liberal person. He always told me, ‘you can be whatever you want to be.’ But I remember we didn’t get things like toys or dolls but sketch pads, water colour, crayons and lots of books. Those were his toys for us.”