Post by Forbes Africa

#FORBESAFRICA30Under30 “In 2022, I joined Chapel Hill Denham, one of Nigeria’s leading investment banks, for a year and a half. It looked like a detour; it was not. I was building the bridge between two worlds that had long dismissed each other. I needed to understand both,” says Sosa Omorogbe. At the beginning of 2024, with certainty and a belief in what she was going to build next, The 1897 was born. “1897 is the year of the British Punitive Expedition to Benin—when thousands of sacred Benin Bronzes were looted from the Royal Palace and scattered across Western institutions, where many remain today,” she explains. “My family traces its lineage to Igun Street, Benin City—home to the bronze casters who created those works. The 1897 is named as an act of reclamation. Every advisory engagement, every exhibition, every collector we build is part of a longer project: ensuring that African art is valued, protected, and owned on its own terms.” Today, Omorogbe's business manages private and institutional collections with portfolios exceeding $5 million in value and has facilitated more than $2 million in art sales. In 2025, The 1897 participated in the Investec Cape Town Art Fair, the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, and Abu Dhabi Art in the United Arab Emirates. Omorogbe has also curated The Alchemy of Color and Matter at the ADA Contemporary Art Gallery in Accra. “I consider myself self-made… Not because I had no advantages, but because I converted every advantage into something that did not previously exist,” she says.