A nearly three-metre-wide painting by Uzo Egonu has set a new auction benchmark for the artist. Will Knowledge Safeguard Freedom I, an oil on canvas dated 1984–85, sold for £198,900 including buyer's premium at Bonhams' New Bond Street saleroom in London on 21 October 2026. The painting came to the market with provenance running from the artist's own collection to a private collection in the United Kingdom.

The canvas, measuring 188 by 295 centimetres, gathers books, ladders, figures and industrial structures into a dense, interconnected composition. Rust-coloured and blue figures cluster around a conspicuous yellow figure; some people wear blindfolds while ladders suggest a route upward and bars and chains make movement look less certain. Bonhams' catalogue reads the work through Egonu's preoccupation with education, scientific progress and liberation, noting the tension between a book close at hand and a reader unable to see, between a ladder promising advancement and structures dividing the space. The house relates the painting to Egonu's wider series of the period and to his Stateless People works.

The record formed part of a strong evening for modern Nigerian art. Bonhams' Modern & Contemporary African Art sale realised £3,347,050 and produced seven artist records. Yusuf Grillo's One Man Band, a 1967 oil on board acquired directly from the artist and exhibited in London in 1968, achieved £461,300, itself a new benchmark for the Nigerian painter, while works by Ben Enwonwu also achieved major results.

Egonu, a Nigerian artist who worked in London and became a central figure of post-war African modernism, has long been collected by institutions and specialists. The £198,900 result now gives the public market a clear top line for his work, underlining how the reappraisal of African modernists is translating into competitive bidding on the auction floor.