The
Grandmaster

The Grandmaster is a single new painting by Anthony Azekwoh, offered in two forms. An archival fine-art print, signed and numbered. And an edition on Base, minted through Manifold.

One hundred prints. One hundred editions onchain. One hundred dollars each, on either side. Both are the same image. What you choose is the surface you prefer to hold it on.

Half of the proceeds from every collect, print and NFT alike, go directly to Chess in Slums Africa. The programme has taught thousands of children in Makoko, Oshodi, and beyond to read a board the way other children read a book.

Print

100 editions · $100 each

Archival giclée, signed and numbered

NFT

100 editions · $100 each

Base · minted through Manifold

Tunde Onakoya founded Chess in Slums Africa in 2018. Since then, the programme has worked with thousands of children across Nigeria and beyond, turning chess into a vehicle for education, discipline, and exit.

In 2024 he played chess for sixty consecutive hours in Times Square, setting a Guinness World Record and raising funds for Chess in Slums, his foundation for disadvantaged children in Nigeria.

This is his first release onchain. The programme has always sold hand-carved boards to sustain the work. The painting extends that line. Same mission, new surface.

Anthony Azekwoh is a Nigerian artist, author, and sculptor working out of Lagos. For six years he has been building what he calls The Book of Lagos, an archive of African characters and gods and saints and sinners rendered in paint, sculpture, and prose.

Six sold-out exhibitions across four continents. Collectors include Cynthia Erivo, Tunji Balogun, and JAE5. The first digital painting entered into the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art belongs to him. A portion of every sale funds The Rosemary Fund, a grant programme for emerging Nigerian artists.

The Grandmaster is a portrait of an elder. It is also a chapter of the book, painted in full weight.