Dr Oluwaseun Adebayo-Ilori
Director
Joined in 2014 from a university art department. Leads the trustees, the money and the long view.
Section I AboutAgodi, Ibadan Friday 6 November 2026
A museum in a print works
For thirty years this building printed the news of the South West. Since 1987 it has shown the region's art, free on Thursday evenings and open to everyone.
Our story
When the presses stopped in 1983, the print works on Regent Close sat empty for four years. A group of Ibadan families, teachers and two painters asked the state for a lease, swept out the press hall, painted it red and hung 210 works that they owned between them.
That first hang is still remembered by people who saw it as children. The red walls stayed and became the Ruby Room. The museum has grown room by room since, but the idea has not changed: art from here, shown properly, for the people who live here.
The Ruby Room keeps the red walls of the first hang in 1987.
Timeline
- 1954The Agodi print works opens on Regent Close
- 1983The presses stop; the building stands empty
- 1987Founding families open the museum with 210 works
- 1994The Afolabi-Coker gift of 96 paintings
- 2003The cloth store opens
- 2011Late Thursdays begin, free after 4pm
- 2019Extension with lift, Learning Room and solar roof
- 2026Indigo, the largest show in our history
A letter from the director
A museum is a promise that something will still be here in a hundred years. We keep that promise with humidity meters and solar panels, but mostly with people: the guards who know every work, the teachers who bring their classes, and the members who pay for a third of everything we do. Thank you for coming.
The people who run it
Halima Bello-Okonkwo
Chief curator
Curated Indigo. Spends her Saturdays in dyeing compounds and her Mondays rehanging rooms.
Tobi Adewale
Head of learning
Former primary teacher in Ogbomoso. Runs school visits, family workshops and outreach.
Names and portraits are examples for this demo.
How we are governed
Trustees
Nine unpaid trustees, including two artists and a teacher, meet four times a year and publish their minutes in the Gazette.
Money
Income comes from tickets (25 percent), members (33 percent), gifts and patrons (28 percent), and the shop, cafe and venue (14 percent). Example figures.
Collecting
We buy from artists and families at fair prices, never accept works without a clear history, and return anything that should not be here.
About questions
Is the Regent a government museum?
No. It is an independent charitable trust that leases the building from the state.
Can I volunteer?
Yes. Volunteers welcome visitors, help in the Learning Room and run the Gazette archive. Write through the contact page.