To appreciate their contributions to art development in Nigeria, Society of Nigerian Artists (SNA) will, at the 15th edition of the art festival, October Rain, honour Nigeria’s largest private art collector, Omooba Yemisi Adedoyin Shyllon and others.
ART-ICLES
Here is the first rule before Omooba Yemisi Shyllon’s stately presence: the interviewer, poised with his pen and notebook, must have his wits about him. Otherwise, chances are that he risked losing the thread of this conversation. For it is the portly 68-year-old’s stock in trade to be both eclectic and encyclopaedic in his discussion of any subject matter. True, his renown as Nigeria’s – if not Africa’s – leading art patron may be more often talked about in the media. Still, his polymathic credentials – burnished by his membership of the Nigerian Bar Association as well as his being a fellow of such professional bodies as the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria, Institute of Directors- Nigeria, Nigerian Institute of Management, Chartered Institute of Stock Brokers, Nigerian Society of Engineers and the Chartered Institute of Marketing of the UK – tend to assert themselves in the course of a prolonged conversation.