Achebe Mbari suggested the name, an Igbo concept for “creation.” Other Mbari members included Christopher Okigbo, JP Clark and South African writer Ezekiel Mphahlele, Frances Ademola, Demas Nwoko, Mabel Segun, Uche Okeke, Arthur Nortje and Bruce Onobrakpeya. The Club Mbari was founded in 1961 by various writers and other groups of visual artists and was originally located on the site of an old Lebanese stall in the Dugbe Market in Ibadan. Mbari has become an important meeting point for Nigerian artists but has also attracted artists from across Africa. Thanks to its close association with Ulli Beier’s literary magazine Black Orpheus, Mbari was considered the only African-based publisher to publish titles by African authors such as JP Clark, Wole Soyinka and Christopher Okigbo.
In its time, Mari hosted internationally known artists such as the American poet Langston Hughes and Jacob Lawrence. probably the most famous African American artist of the last century, who exhibited or displayed their works. Wole Soyinka’s “The Trial of Brother Jero” JP Clark’s “Song of a Goat” were performed in Mbari. Also, in Mbari, the famous Nigerian musician, composer and activist Fela Ransome-Kuti made his debut as a conductor.
Mbari has become a hotbed of art and a showcase for talent from the African continent and the new nation of Nigeria, giving visibility to artists of African descent. Unfortunately, the outbreak of civil war in 1967 interrupted what was probably the most successful art movement in Africa and the diaspora.