BY THOMAS ONA ODULATE OF IJEBU ODE

William Fagg writing about this figure states: "The famous carver Thomas Ona flourished from about the turn of the century and into the fifties, first at Ijebu Ode (whence his carving style was derived) and later at Lagos, where he was well known for his gently satirical carvings of colonial administrators, lawyers, missionaries and occasionally Yoruba, made for the British. His figures are types, rather than individuals, but occasionally he would agree to do a 'portrait', as for Pilot Flack, who was a well-known Marine Pilot with the Nigerian Marines in the thirties, who retired as Commander Flack and died in 1964 (NP is probably a misrepresentation for NM); however, the carving conforms precisely to Ona's conception of the ideal Englishman"