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By Damiete Braide
Nigeria’s most celebrated cultural icon, Yusuf Adebayo Grillo, died, yesterday, at Gbagada General Hospital during a brief illness at the age of 87.
According to Otunba Babatunde Grillo, a member of the family, the late Grillo will be buried today at Atan Cemetery by 4pm.
Grillo was a pioneer modernist artist and was the first president of the Society of Nigerian Artists.
During his life style, Grillo was referred to as a founding father of contemporary visual art in Nigeria.
He was born in Lagos in 1934 and received a diploma in Fine Arts. He later left the country for further studies at the prestigious Cambridge University and then travelled to Germany and the United States.
Apart from being a pioneer painter, he is known for educating a generation of artists during his time at the Department of Art and Printing at the Yaba College of Technology where he had served as a head of department for over 25 years.
