Ebenezer Akinola's Untitled is a distinguished example of the tradition of figurative social painting that has its roots in the Nigerian modernist movement of the mid-twentieth century. The 40 x 50 inch oil painting depicts a group of figures in traditional dress, rendered with a careful attention to light and surface that reflects Akinola's sustained engagement with the academic strand of Nigerian painting. This lineage runs through the influence of the Royal College-trained pioneers of modern Nigerian art, through the Zaria Art Society, and into the contemporary moment, and Akinola places himself within it with evident technical confidence. The treatment of the figures places an emphasis on collective rather than individual identity, which is consistent with a pictorial tradition in which the social group is as important a subject as the individual portrait. Created and acquired in December 2022.