CHIEF NIKE OKUNDAYE MOURNS ALAN DONOVAN

“I am who I am and what I am now because he was one of the people God used greatly to shape my life and bring me this far,” a distraught Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye said when she heard about the passing of the art collector and conservationist Alan Donovan on Sunday, December 5 in Kenya.

Donovan, according to a statement credited to the African Heritage Estate management, had passed away peacefully in his sleep that Sunday morning at African Heritage House in Athi River at the age of 83.

The statement also read: “Alan Donovan was a Yoruba Chief, Chief Babalaje of Ido-Osun, bestowed upon him in March 2019 by Fellow Yoruba Chiefs; Chief Nike Okundaye and Chief Muraina Oyelami from Oshogbo. This event was witnessed by Hon. Amina Mohammed, Cabinet Secretary for Sports and Culture of Kenya.”

Upon his arrival in Africa over 50 years ago, as an American aid worker, he had co-founded the African Heritage Gallery with Kenya’s late first vice-president Joseph Murumbi and his wife, the late Sheila Murumbi. He established the African Heritage House, which is reputed to be the continent’s first pan-African gallery in Nairobi and became pioneering craft retail and wholesale operation.

The African Heritage House, whose architecture he had modelled after pre-colonial African edifices like the Great Mosque of Djenne in Mali and the Swahili houses of Coastal East Africa, among others he encountered during his travels across the continent and contains a priceless collection of African art.

Donovan had also been known to organise and curate exhibitions all around the world showcasing Africa’s rich cultural legacy for over four decades.

His remains, which were said to have been taken to a funeral home, would be interred at a yet-to-be-announced date.