Iwalewahaus, African art center in Bayreuth, Germany.

The Iwalewahaus is the University of Bayreuth's centre for contemporary African and diaspora art, opened in 1981 and housed since November 2013 at Wölfelstraße 2. The four-storey building, erected in 1907 in baroque-influenced Jugendstil for the Bavarian State Bank in Oberfranken, offers nearly 2,300 square metres across basement, floors and loft for exhibitions, offices and archives. Its collection of more than 12,000 works, based largely on Ulli Beier's private holdings, centres on Nigeria, notably the Oshogbo school of painting and the Nsukka school of graphics.

The institution was founded in 1981 under Ulli Beier's direction and relocated to a new location in 2013, expanding its capacity for art presentation and research. This move allowed it to better display and study its growing collection of contemporary African art.

The name comes from a Yoruba proverb: iwa, "existence" or "good character", and ewa, "beauty", so Iwalewa reads "character is beauty". Ulli Beier chose it to signal that the house would not stop at the formal beauty of foreign artworks but would seek their iwa, their real identity. The Yoruba are one of the three major ethnic groups of south-west Nigeria.

The center is located at the University of Bayreuth and offers access to its archives for research and teaching purposes. Visitors should check opening hours in advance and plan ahead, especially if they wish to work with the collections.

The center holds one of Europe's largest public collections of contemporary African art, built through systematic collecting and private donations. This collection represents decades of dedicated work to support African artistic voices.