While some museums continue to wrestle over their ‘Benin dilemma’ (to whom should we return our Benin Bronzes?), the Denver Art Museum is celebrating a cultural collaboration with Nigeria that has lasted over five decades.

The Museum's collaboration with Nigeria's government, the Oba of Benin and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) began in 1973 when two carved Yoruba verandah posts were acquired for Denver Art Museum's (DAM) Arts of Africa collection. When it purchased the carvings, the Museum was unaware the items were part of a larger hoard comprising 16 verandah posts stolen earlier that year from the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan in Oyo, Nigeria. Shortly after the International Council of Museums reported their theft, former DAM director Otto Bach initiated discussions with Nigeria to repatriate the two Yoruba carvings. Their return was completed in February 1975.

Since then, the Museum maintains it has been dedicated to “the respectful identification and repatriation” of other cultural artefacts in its collection of around 800 objects from the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2022, in a further act of respect “for the Kingdom of Benin and the government and people of Nigeria”, the Museum removed its entire collection of Benin Bronzes from its Arts of Africa gallery and returned it to Nigeria.

Denver’s partnership has not all been one way. In April this year, DAM signed a 5-year loan agreement with the NCMM, acting on behalf of the Oba of Benin, for the return and public exhibition in Denver of a Benin Bronze plaque (dated 1550-1650). According to a museum statement, the loan underscores the important role the Benin Bronze plaque can play as a “cultural ambassador”, celebrating the rich beauty of Benin’s artistic heritage.

“To be entrusted with the temporary display of a Benin Bronze plaque on loan from the Nigerian government,” said Christoph Heinrich, director of the DAM, “is a testament to the mutual respect and partnership we’ve built.”

However, not all western collections contemplating a legal transfer of their Benin Bronzes have achieved this same level of collaboration. After Nigeria’s former President, Muhammad Buhari signed a decree in May 2023 charging the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II, as the rightful owner of returning Benin artefacts and with responsibility for their future placement, there’s been consternation among western collections. It was not what they signed up to when they negotiated to return their Benin artefacts.

Their agreements, negotiated with the NCMM either for long-term loans or full repatriation, involved the transfer of artefacts into the new Edo Museum of West African Art  (MOWAA), the first stage of which is due to open in November this year. Several of these institutions have also committed a significant financial investment into MOWAA’s development and, understandably, are concerned over plans to divert Benin artefacts into the Oba’s own proposed Benin Royal Museum. That is a museum still in the very earliest stages of planning.

Whether Denver’s approach to repatriation is followed by any of the 38 other US collections that currently hold looted objects from Benin City is unclear. But nobody can question DAM’s dedication to reparative and thoughtful representation of diasporic African identities.

Director General of the NCMM Olugbile Holloway will be joining Arts of Africa fellow Syokau Mutonga and members of DAM’s Provenance Department for a public discussion on the significance of repatriation and the importance of fostering international relationships at a public discussion at the Denver Art Museum on 21 April 2026.

Photo: Benin Plaque, 1550-1650. Work loaned out by the National Commission for Museums and Monuments of Nigeria

Courtesy of Denver Art Museum