A £198,900 result for Will Knowledge Safeguard Freedom I has set a new Uzo Egonu auction record, according to Bonhams.

The painting sold at New Bond Street, London, on October 21, 2026, with buyer’s premium included in the price. Across a canvas nearly three metres wide, Egonu brings together books, ladders, figures and industrial structures. The title poses a question, and the painting keeps returning to it: what can knowledge change, and what stands in the way of that change?

Books, Blindfolds and a Way Up

Signed and dated 1984–85, the oil on canvas measures 188 × 295 centimetres. Its provenance runs from the artist’s own collection to a private collection in the United Kingdom. Within the composition, rust-coloured and blue figures cluster around a conspicuous yellow figure. Books suggest access to learning, yet several people wear blindfolds. Ladders offer a route upward, while bars and chains make movement look less certain.

Bonhams’ catalogue reads the work through Egonu’s interest in education, scientific progress and liberation. The imagery is densely connected rather than arranged as a simple sequence. A book can appear close at hand while its reader remains unable to see; a ladder can suggest advancement while other structures divide the space. Those tensions give the painting room to ask its question without resolving it too neatly.

A Record Result for a Work about Possibility

In the full painting, encounters between figures and books belong to a wider network of bodies, lines and barriers. Written questions are worked into the image, so language and composition share the task of directing the viewer’s attention. The catalogue relates these concerns to a wider series and to Egonu’s Stateless People works.

The sale result draws attention to a painting concerned with what people might achieve, as well as the conditions that restrict them. Bonhams reported it as one of seven records in the £3,347,050 Modern & Contemporary African Art auction, where works by Ben Enwonwu and Yusuf Grillo also achieved major results. For Egonu, the £198,900 price establishes a new auction benchmark.

Source: Bonhams.

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