Oluwole Omofemi

Oluwole Omofemi, born Godwin Oluwole Omofemi and also recorded as Godwin Adekunle Oluwole Omofemi, was born on June 2, 1988, in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. He attended Saviour Apostolic Primary School in Ekotedo, Ibadan, then Community Grammar School in Mokola, Ibadan, before enrolling at The Polytechnic, Ibadan, where he earned a National Diploma in 2012 and a Higher National Diploma in Painting in 2015, and was recognized as one of the school's top graduating students. He completed Nigeria's National Youth Service Corps in 2017.

His first solo exhibition, Iriri (Experience), opened at Alexis Gallery in Lagos in 2019. He established a studio in Ibadan around 2018 and continues to live and work there, and now hosts a residency program for emerging artists at that studio. His international profile grew quickly afterward: a 2020 solo show, The Way We Were, opened Signature African Art's London gallery, followed by a second solo there, In Our Days, in 2021, and, per MutualArt's biography, an inclusion that same year in Self Addressed, a group exhibition at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles reported as curated by Kehinde Wiley. In 2022 he held a solo show, A Woman's Worth, at OOA Gallery in Barcelona.

Omofemi's highest-profile commission to date is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, reported as among the last portraits commissioned of her before her death in September 2022. The painting appeared on the cover of Tatler's July 2022 Platinum Jubilee issue, reportedly making him the first African and Nigerian artist to appear on a Tatler cover. In 2026 he was commissioned to paint a portrait of Prince William for Tatler's June 2026 cover.

Coverage of Omofemi centers less on formal critical assessment in major art publications and more on his rapid institutional rise. His reported inclusion in Self Addressed, said to have been curated by Kehinde Wiley at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in 2021, and successive solo shows at Signature African Art in London and OOA Gallery in Barcelona, have been read as evidence of a young painter building a serious footprint outside Nigeria in a short span of years. Journalistic coverage, including an Al Jazeera feature on Ibadan's contemporary art scene, situates him within a broader wave of Nigerian painters gaining international attention. His royal commissions, of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 and Prince William in 2026, have given him mainstream visibility beyond the gallery and auction circuit, though these are commissions rather than critical endorsements.

Omofemi's auction market is recent and still thin, with only a small number of public sales tracked. His earliest recorded secondary-market sale came in June 2020, when Just for two fetched about USD 8,060 (EUR 7,150) at the French house Piasa. Soul Meditation II, a 2018 painting, is reported to have set a new record for him at GBP 27,500 (about USD 38,000) at a Christie's First Open online sale in 2022. Metamorphosis II sold for GBP 100,800 (about USD 132,946) at a Phillips London New Now sale, reported around 2021, though the exact sale date could not be confirmed. His reported auction high is The Invader, which sold for about USD 189,000 in 2022; the specific auction house and exact sale date are not confirmed in public sources. Other reported high results include Providence at USD 169,900 and Yesterday Has Gone at USD 151,200, with house and date details for both similarly undocumented. Given the small number of public sales and several undated results, any single figure should be read as an early data point rather than an established trend.

No catalogue raisonne has been identified for Omofemi, and there is no documented certificate-of-authenticity program. Works are primarily authenticated and sold through the galleries that represent him, including Signature African Art, OOA Gallery, and Akoje Gallery. His auction history is short, with a limited number of public sales, and in at least one case, The Invader, the auction house and sale date are unconfirmed, so any reported price should be treated as provisional until matched to a specific sale record. Public museum acquisitions of his work are not clearly documented as of this writing; his institutional presence so far runs mainly through exhibitions and fair presentations rather than confirmed permanent collections.