Ulli Beier, the man whose archive will form the nucleus of the Centre for Black Culture and International Understanding (henceforth referred to as the Centre), was completely at home in Yoruba society and thought highly of its culture. After he left Nigeria, first in 1966 and finally in 1974, he consistently sought to make the other societies in which he lived and worked understand the luminosity of not only Yoruba verbal and plastic arts, but also of its wisdom. In his connections with the arts and cultures of various other societies, from India to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands to Aboriginal Australia, he always crossed cultural boundaries in his efforts to connect these various cultures and their arts—and therefore peoples. In all this, Yoruba culture and society was his base—the perspective from which he viewed all other societies and cultures. read more...