Collection

Iwalewahaus maintains a collection of modern and contemporary visual arts from Africa, Asia and the Pacific Area that is unique within Germany. The main focus of the collection is Nigeria, but there are equally important artworks from Sudan, Mozambique, Tanzania, DR Congo, Haiti, India, Papua New Guinea and Australia.

The collection is generally based on the collection of Ulli Beier, the founder of Iwalewahaus.

The collection of paintings, especially those of the Oshogbo group plus the collection of graphics with a focus on the Nigerian Nsukka-school is of international significance.

Apart from visual arts, the archive of Iwalewahaus hosts an extensive collection of contemporary African music, video film productions from Nigeria and Ghana and African textiles.

The collection has recently been expanded by private donations like the collection Kleine-Gunk, the Kindermann collection or the Klaus Betz-Collection. These extensions secure the collection’s status as the largest public collection of African contemporary art in Europe for the long term.

To get an insight into the art collection online, have a look at the highlights of the collection as well as the database of the university of bayreuth:
Collections.uni-bayreuth.de

To find out more about how to use the database, please follow the link below: www.fdm.uni-bayreuth.de/en