This carved timber mural by the Nigerian artist Erhabor Ogieva Emokpae (1934-1984) is the largest item in the Unilever archive at Port Sunlight, England. It’s over 4m x 4.5m & made up of 35 individual panels depicting the story of palm fruit harvesting & palm oil production.
The panels commissioned for the refurbishment of Unilever House in London in 1979, also show William Hesketh Lever (1851-1925), the soap industrialist & cofounder of Lever Brothers, visiting Africa & his most successful soap brand, the famous Sunlight soap.
It’s a vast piece of history & story telling revealing that behind ever bar of Sunlight soap was a vast system of extraction, production, logistics, & international trade stemming from Western Africa.
This drawing of the carving by Iain Jackson captures the details of the work.
Emokpae was a Creative Design Director for the design agency Lintas (also one of Unilever’s subsidiary companies). Founded as house agency for the London soap maker Lever Brothers in 1899, Lintas became independent after a merger created parent company Unilever in 1930.
Emokpae’s work is housed at Port Sunlight, the modal village founded by William Lever in 1888, built to house Lever’s ‘Sunlight Soap’ factory workers, but today is home to a museum, beautiful architecture, a world-class art gallery, stunning parkland & thriving a community.