Background
Nzante Spee was born in 1953 in Mbem, Cameroon. When he was a teenager, he used to make some paintings and decorations in façades
artist educator musician singer
Nzante Spee was born in 1953 in Mbem, Cameroon. When he was a teenager, he used to make some paintings and decorations in façades
Nzante Spee completed secondary school at Baptist Missionary College in Bamenda, Cameroon, and in 1976 traveled to Nigeria to study fine arts until 1979. He continued his studies in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, until 1982.
In 1971, Nzante Spee left the college and began teaching English at Saint Mary's College in Mbalmayo, Cameroon. As a young man, since it was impossible to earn one's livelihood in Bamenda by painting, Spee decorated facades, bookshops, and post offices. Then he went to Nigeria to improve his painting skills. By that point, Spee was recognized as a painter of great talent, with works being sold internationally. In spite of his rising reputation, he decided to return to Cameroon.
Moving back to Bamenda, he had multiple expositions and workshops. In 1984, he won the Bastos Prize, awarded in honor of Cameroon's best painting of the year. From 1990 to 1991, he participated in the Festival of the French-speaking World in Limoges, France. Once again returning to Cameroon, Spee finally decided to carry out one of his oldest dreams: to set up an arts center in Bamenda in support of Cameroonian painters trying to make a career out of their art. Before the founding of the Spee Art Center, no one in Cameroon could believe that it is possible to make a living painting.
Clearly, Spee showed that it is possible to live and work as an artist. He influenced countless young Cameroonian painters. His hope for all his students was for them to take their time to let their talents flourish rather than copying the work of others. Spee was an artist, painter, singer, and musician - unique from all points of view - who has been able to export his work internationally, but without losing sight of his roots. He also made handcrafted advertising posters and played guitar in a reggae group.
For a long time, Spee worked only in monochrome since it was difficult to find paint in Bamenda, but then he painted in bright, juxtaposed colors. One of his painting style, the melting age, constituted a pictorial world in which everything crumpled, flowed, and fell apart, like an impression that the world is ending. Another style was part surrealist, part cubist. The one rule of the game in the work of Spee's art was to hide reality under a simplistic façade which attracted the eye. The artist died on May 25, 2005 in Stockton, California.
Le Paradis des Antilopes
Music Trio Band
The Drummer and the dancers
The Woodcutter
The Saturday Night Session Band
David and Goliath
The Urgent State of Emergency Military Paratroopers
unknown title
Dernier Championat mondial de boxe
The Man, the Women and the Child
Music on the Move
The Wahdoosee Question
The Kora Quartet
Feeling at home
Echoes of Music
His style, from cubism to surrealism and addressed to a naïve caricature but full with provocative humor, culminates in a pictorial world where all these expressions are mixed in the so-called melting age aesthetic. Spee's work was inspired by music and movement with bright colors that showed the intense ecstasy with which he experienced the world.
Quotations: "Artists are not very appreciated in [Cameroonian] society. We are neglected and even if people do talk about festivals, once they are over, the same tough life starts up all over again."
One-quarter of Cameroon marriages are polygamous so Nzante Spee had three wives. He had sons Tracy, Royce, Arasmos, and Boogie, and daughters Susie and Sparkie.
