Uche Okeke

Before being admitted to read Fine Art at Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology (NCAST), now Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Okeke had already exhibited taxidermy work during the Field Society meeting in Jos Museum, participated in the preparation and presentation of Nigerian Drawings and Paintings with Bernard Fagg as curator and had a solo exhibition of drawings and paintings, in Jos and Kaduna with Sir Ahmadu Bello in attendance.

The group was a result of political conflict in Nigeria struggling to gain independence and was founded by important protagonists of modernism in Nigerian Art like Yusuf Grillo, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Oseloka Osadebe, Demas Nwoko and others.

Most of his professors at the Nigerian College were British and taught western style techniques however, The Zaria Society opposed the imposition of European art school ideas on young artists in Africa.

[3] In 1971, Uche Okoke joined the Department of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka as a professor and teacher.

With Chike Aniakor and Obiora Udechukwu he established the formation of art and aesthetics of Nigerian modernism in the seventies.

Traditionally, a Uli artist is a female person in Igbo society who paints patterns on the body and sometimes on the walls of sacred places.

The motifs and symbols in Uli usually remain consistent however, it is the ordering of the design elements that challenge the ingenuity of traditional Igbo artists.

Among others it was the compelling style of his essays that earned the group of young students at the Ahmadu Bello University the title "Zaria rebels".

The institute contains a collection of artifacts, objects, and artwork from friends Okeke acquired during his travels to different parts of Nigeria.

He was the director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka, a visiting professor to the Department of Creative Arts, University of Port Harcourt, Honorary Deputy Director-General (Africa) of International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, among numerous other engagements with many educational and cultural institutions.

That Okeke carried the Uli experiment beyond the walls of Zaria and stood in the forefront of its transformation into a modern idiom in the 1970s, from the studios at Nsukka was original.

1981–82 Honorary Fellow, Department of Textile and Clothing Design, and Art History, University of Minnesota, USA (one-year sabbatical leave).

1954–55 Designer, visual aids, St. Peter Claver's Catholic and College of Mary Immaculate Heart Practicing Schools, Kafanchan, Nigeria.