Pioneer Artists of East Africa

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Pioneer Artists of East Africa

From left to right: Ancent Soi, Sanaa Gateja, Elkana Ongesa, Expedito Mwebe Kibulla, Jak Katarikawe, John Odochameny, Francis Nnaggenda, Lady Magdalene Odundo with son Marimba

Joseph Murumbi, the second Vice President of Kenya was Africa’s greatest cultural collector. He was an ardent supporter of the pioneer artists of East Africa, those artists who started their careers, against all odds, shortly after independence.

abroad…

The pioneer artists who have stayed in East Africa did not fare so well including the brilliant sculptor Elkana Ongesa, the late artistic genius Expedito Mwebe, prolific metal artist John Odochameny, self trained artist Ancent Soi, “Africa’s Chagall” Jak Katarikawe, bead king Sanaa Gateja, and the Malindi-based Richard Onyango among others.

All of these artists have exhibited their works in the “Pioneer Gallery” inside the Old PC’s Office in the epicenter of Nairobi. Many of them have works on permanent display as part of the Murumbi African Heritage Collections at the Nairobi Gallery there. The Murumbi Trust has sought support from the American University in the USA, among others, to take the works of these aging artists on a travelling exhibition of the USA. This would be a marvelous way to give these artists the publicity they deserve as well as promote tourism to Kenya. (see sidebar: “Masterpieces of East African Artists”).

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FRANCIS NNAGGENDA

Until he retired a few years ago, Francis Nnaggenda served as chairman of the Fine Arts Department at Makerere University in Kampala. Born in l936, Nnaggenda left Uganda in the l960s to study art in Germany. He supported himself by working part time as a musician and sculptor’s assistant. It was during his time in Germany that Nnaggenda encountered the legendary art of West Africa, which had already inspired many of the incipient modern artists earlier in the century. Upon completing his studies, he returned to East Africa in 1968 and joined the University College of Nairobi as lecturer in Art. While teaching at the University of Nairobi, he met the Honorable Joseph Murumbi, who became one of his most ardent admirers. When Murumbi and Alan Donovan opened the African Heritage Gallery in 1973, some of Nnaggenda’s finest works were exhibited there. During the opening exhibition, Murumbi urged Margaret Kenyatta, the mayor of Nairobi at the time, and the Nairobi City Council, to support Nnaggenda’s monumental works. Murumbi said he was the only African to buy Nnaggenda’s works and he owned 5 of them. This appeal was not headed and Nnaggenda later moved to Texas, where he stayed until returning to Makerere University as Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts.

Nnaggenda’s masterpieces include an enormous metal sculpture that stands at the Murumbi Peace Memorial, a mammoth wooden statue now at the Murumbi Gallery at the Kenya National Archives, and a smaller sculpture at the Nairobi Gallery at the Old Provincial Commissioner’s Office. His highly acclaimed “Mother and Child” in granite stands in front of the National Museums of Kenya. A gigantic blue sculpture titled “Three in One” is located at the Alan Donovan African Heritage House near Nairobi. Many more works are found in U.S. Museums and gallery collections.

Francis Nnaggenda Flyer

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This sculpture, "Woman at the Gate" by Francis Nnggenda, stood in the garden of the Murumbi home in Muthaiga for decades. It now overlooks their grave site at the Murumbi Peace Memorial

LADY MAGDALENE ODUNDO

Professor Magdalene Ayango N. Odundo’s clay vessels transcend the confinements of pottery, craft, or function. A Kenyan artist, based in the UK, her clay works have entered into an ethereal realm of contemporary art that can only be described in terms of beauty. They blend multiple associations of meanings and functional references that speak evocatively of past ceramic traditions and heritage, while at the same time appearing utterly contemporary.

Magdalene’s ceramic vessels have a deliberate association with the age-old pottery traditions of Africa, and reflect the artist’s thorough knowledge of the world’s ceramic history. Professor Odundo is acclaimed as one of the world’s leading ceramicists, and is probably Kenya’s most famous living artist. She comes from an area of Western Kenya that is renowned for its pottery traditions, but she has also traveled to Nigeria and many other parts of the world to study the ways women produce pottery, using traditions of hand-building and firing that are thousands of years old. Upon returning to the London area, where she still lives, Odundo completed a master’s degree in ceramics, and maintains an intuitive technique distinctly her own. She continues to teach ceramics at the University College for Creative Arts, previously known as the Surrey Institute of Art and Design. After numerous exhibitions around the world, including a successful pioneer exhibition at the original African Heritage Gallery on Kenyatta Avenue during the United Nations Decade for Women conference in Nairobi in l985, collectors, museums and galleries around the world now seek her magnificent vessels. In recent years, her pots have brought record prices whenever they appear at auction. Magdalene was given an OBE by the Queen of England for her outstanding work in ceramics, the only Kenyan to receive such an honour.

Magdalene’s quest to contemplate, articulate and shape each pot is a process that may take months; her quest for perfection is passionate, restless and gratifying to her and the viewers. Each of her works is unique and defies easy categorization. Today, one of her pots appears at the entry of the British Museum in London. Another is on loan from the Murumbi Trust to the Nairobi Gallery at the Old PCs Office Building in Nairobi, the oldest building in the city. There, it inhabits a place of honor at the foyer of the gallery at “Point Zero,” the point of the city from whence all measurements to other cities and locations are taken.

Magdalene is now achieving international acclaim for her phenomenal glass works: see photo.

Magdalene Odundo – glass installation

Vessel by Magdalene Odundo

Lady Magdalene Odundo with son Marimba Odundo-Mendez at Buckingham Palace receiving OBE from the Queen

ELKANA ONGESA

Born in l944, Elkana Ongesa comes from a long line of traditional stone carvers from Kisii, in Southwestern Kenya. He was the first in his family to combine his innate skills with the broadening influence of training through Fine Arts at Makerere University in Kampala and the University of Nariobi, where he completed his landmark post graduate thesis on stone carving in

East Africa. Now his sculptures grace many public spaces around the world including the United Nations Headquarters in  New York City, the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia, Caltex in Houston, Texas, and Changchun City in China.

Elkana’s first major exhibition was the opening exhibition of African Heritage on Kenyatta Avenue in 1973. The Director of UNESCO, Amadou M’Bow, was so impressed by Elkana’s sculpture of a bird that he saw at Joe Murumbi’s house in Muthaiga (which is now in the Murumbi Gallery at the Kenya National Archives) that he asked Murumbi to ask Elkana
to create a similar sculpture for the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. In l978, the Kenyan government made a special gift to UNESCO of a remarkable giant bird sculpture by Elkana . Before his death in 1990, Murumbi asked Elkana to sculpt a statue for his gravesite. Elkana selected a huge black and white granite boulder from Lukenya which he formed into the image of a monumental “Bird of Peace Emerging from the Stone of Despair” that echoes a Martin Luther King speech . When the Murumbi Peace Memorial was opened in 2009, by the then American Ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, Elkana was once again asked to create a unique work, this time for the US Embassy in Kenya. His magnificent 30 ton granite
sculpture “Dancing Birds” now stands at the entrance to the embassy in Gigiri. Elkana continues to organize and participate in many international symposiums on stone sculpture, including a recent one held near Tabaka in SouthWestern Kenya, called “Stones that Talk” which drew participants from all parts of the world.

Stone skulpture from the opening exhibition at African Heritage in 1973

EXPEDITO MWEBE KIBBULA

EXPEDITO is an exceptionally talented and innovative artist, sculptor, designer, and builder. His works include interior design, furniture, painting, architecture, industrial design and environmental art, including unique designs based on traditional African combs. He has achieved commercial success by commissioning his works to churches, universities, architects and others. The monumental 12 feet high circular mural in the foyer of the All African Conference of Churches, hewn from a series of upright planks bind the spectator with mythical images and symbols from across the African continent, representations of life in all its complexity, including an allusion to the shadows of prehistory. In 1993-94, he represented East Africa in the USAID Mid-America International Fellowship and Residency Programme. Born in Uganda in 1952, Expedito graduated from Makerere University with a B.A. in arts in 1975. Soon after, he started lecturing in art at the Kenyatta University College before launching his career in the “real world”. His extraordinary art works have been seen in public areas throughout East Africa, most notably in the interiors of the early Samburu and Keekorok Lodges in Kenya and his stunning hand sculpted wooden panels that adorn the Bambara Lounges in the Nairobi Serena and Kampala Serena Hotels. His magnificent metal sculpture “The Meeting Place” is the centerpiece of the Nairobi Serena Hotel Lobby. Later, he created a unique sculpture in stone for the late Joseph and Sheila Murumbi which now stands at the Murumbi Peace  Memorial at the Nairobi City Park. It represents a “Universal Couple”, including all of humanity in its quest to achieve and better itself through the dignity of artistic creation – a fitting tribute to the late Murumbis. Expedito continues on his quest for excellence in the arts, along side his son and protégé, Michelangelo, whose works also feature in this exhibition.

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“The Meeting Place”, the centerpiece of the Nairobi Serena Hotel lobby.

JOHN ODOCH’AMENY

One of Africa’s most prolific artists, John Odoch’ameny taught many of East Africa’s leading sculptors while Sculptor in Residence at African Heritage House in the l980s. His imaginative black molten metal works are familiar to East African gallery goers, but he also produces stunning works in stone and other materials. “Odoch” has a very recognizable style, yet he continues to come up with exciting, innovative works like his Mass Communications series, created from the debris of the twentieth century industrial revolution such as typewriters, printing presses and telephones. His more recent series includes laptop computers and cell phones. Now based in his native Uganda, Odoch continues to delight us as one of East Africa’s most interesting and innovative artists. Two of his molten metal sculptures are on permanent exhibition at the Murumbi Gallery, Kenya National Archives, and there are others in facades at the entry of the Nairobi Gallery, in the Old PCs Office building in Nairobi, as well as at Alan Donovan’s African Heritage House.

SANAA GATEJA

Sanaa Gateja, locally known as “The Bead King,” was born in Kisoro, Uganda in l950, where he completed his early education. In l970, he moved to Mombasa where he opened his first art gallery across from the port at Mombasa Old Town called Studio Sanaa. This gallery expanded to Fort Jesus Museum in l974. His gallery was among the first to concentrate on exhibiting the traditional arts of Kenya, including the functional arts of Northern Kenya and Lamu and basketry and jewelry from the East African coast. He worked closely with other pioneer art organizations in Mombasa, such as Bombolulu and Mombasa Home Industries. In l976, he opened the first major art gallery in the Mombasa city center where he exhibited works by East African artists and craftsmen. He also redesigned the Lawford’s Hotel in Malindi in Swahili style.

In the l980’s, Sanaa relocated his studio and workshops to Nairobi. He founded a brass workshop where he created and produced brass lamps, traditional coffee pots and other brassware, including the unique lampshades in the Nairobi Serena hotel lobby. He held several exhibitions at African Heritage Gallery in Nairobi, at the National Museums of Kenya and the Kenya National Archives. Sanaa then trained as a gold and silver jewelry designer in Florence, Italy, after which he worked in the art and jewelry trade in London for six years. In 1986, he held a major solo exhibition of both jewelry and paintings at the African Centre in London to celebrate Uganda’s liberation.

In 1989, Sanaa returned to Uganda where he founded Kwetu Afrika Art and Development Centre based in Lubowa, Kampala, Uganda. Here, Sanaa used easily available local materials to research, innovate, and create art as a means of fighting poverty. One of his unique contributions was the practice of recycling paper into beads. This medium, which he began using in 1990 at his Kwetu Africa Studio and which has spread throughout East African communities, provides a livelihood to many jobless persons, specifically, women and youth. His Centre exports many products made of handmade paper beads, employing dozens of skilled female workers full time and many others on a part time basis.

RICHARD ONYANGO

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