Yusuf Grillo's One Man Band (1967), an oil-on-board composition measuring 117 by 74 centimetres, changed hands at Bonhams in London on October 21, 2026, realising £461,300 including buyer's premium. The price sets a new auction benchmark for the Nigerian modernist, and the painting stood out among the lots of the house's £3,347,050 Modern and Contemporary African Art sale.

The painting's journey to the saleroom is part of its appeal. It was acquired directly from Grillo by the architect Aldo Whistance Grant and appeared in public once before: as exhibit number 64 in Contemporary Nigerian Art at the Commonwealth Institute Art Gallery in London, shown from June 20 to July 21, 1968. It then spent nearly sixty years out of the spotlight before re-emerging this month.

The composition shows an elongated musician surrounded by layered blues, greens and violets, built from angular forms. A diagonal wind instrument crosses the torso while curved drumheads gather near the figure's hand, so that the act of music-making itself, rather than any portrait likeness, holds the picture together. Bonhams' catalogue situates the work between Grillo's Yoruba sculptural heritage and his formal training, with cool, glass-like colour recalling his parallel interest in stained glass; the drums' violet-blue surfaces pick up the surrounding palette instead of sitting apart as a still life.

Grillo, a founding member of the Zaria Art Society, led the Department of Art and Printing at Yaba College of Technology for more than a quarter of a century, and music recurred as a subject in his painting alongside the geometric figuration for which he is known. The record result suggests the market for mid-century Nigerian modernism still has room to run when works arrive with direct-from-the-artist provenance and an early exhibition history attached.