About

Circle Art Agency was established in Nairobi in 2012 with Danda Jaroljmek as Director, in a converted 1970s modernist house in Lavington Nairobi, with the vision of raising international awareness for artists in the East African region and building a collector base for East African art.

Circle began by curating ground-breaking pop-up exhibitions around the city and by establishing this auction. In 2015 it built the first white cube gallery in Nairobi, and has since run over 75 curated group and solo exhibitions. In 2020 it joined Cromwell Place in London, and it exhibits regularly at art fairs in London, New York, Paris, Cape Town, Lagos and Dubai. In 2023 the gallery moved to a stunning, larger space at Victoria Square, Riara Road, Nairobi.

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From 2025 the auction has been presented in collaboration with Strauss & Co, the leading South African auction house. The sale is held live in Nairobi and broadcast online through the Strauss & Co platform, opening the region's modern and contemporary art to a substantially wider international bidding audience while keeping the auction rooted in Nairobi.

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Phase one: establishment, 2013–2015. Annual sales of KES 18–19.5 million at sell-through rates between 84% and 89%. A period of market building and artist discovery, in which Geoffrey Mukasa and Edward Saidi Tingatinga emerged as the names collectors would follow.

Phase two: growth and peak, 2017–2019. Annual sales rising from KES 19.6 million to KES 30 million, with sell-through between 85% and 92%. International attention arrived, price records were set for multiple artists, and the 2019 sale remains the strongest edition to date.

Phase three: consolidation, 2020–2025. Two sales in 2020 under COVID restrictions, one live in March and one online in October, followed by a sustained recovery. Annual totals have settled in the KES 25–31 million range with sell-through frequently above 90%, indicating a mature market rather than a speculative one.

Supply, not demand, sets the ceiling. The strongest results are for rare secondary-market works from the 1960s to the 1990s, which come to market infrequently. Where quality historic material has been found, it has consistently exceeded estimate.

Geography. By value, Kenyan artists account for roughly 38% of sales, Tanzanian artists 25%, Ugandan artists 22% and Sudanese artists 12%, with Ethiopian and other regions making up the remainder. The Sudanese modernists in particular have been a consistent draw for international bidders.

Maturity. Sell-through above 90% in most recent editions, alongside repeat bidding from an established collector base, points to a market that now sustains itself rather than depending on the novelty of individual sales.

Where the opportunities are. Blue-chip names — Tingatinga, Mukasa, Kyeyune — remain the reliable core of any collection. Growth is concentrated in contemporary artists with a decade of results behind them, such as Peterson Kamwathi and Shabu Mwangi. The emerging opportunity lies with historic artists arriving at auction for the first time, as Kiure Francis Msangi did in 2025, and with newer names such as Beatrice Wanjiku and Miska Mohammed.

Edward Saidi Tingatinga (Tanzanian, 1932–1972). The single most valuable name in the sale's history. His 1971 elephant painting achieved KES 5,635,200 in 2019 and his animal works have appreciated more than sixfold across thirteen years.

Geoffrey Mukasa (Ugandan, 1954–2009). The most frequently offered artist in the auction, present in almost every edition and repeatedly among the top three results. The market's most consistent performer.

Kiure Francis Msangi (Tanzanian, 1936–2003). Debuted in 2025 and took the two highest prices of that sale, led by Baobab under the Red Moon at KES 3,522,000 — the strongest first appearance the auction has seen.

Peterson Kamwathi (Kenyan, born 1980). The region's leading contemporary artist at auction, with prices rising steadily from KES 375,680 in 2013 to KES 1,056,600 in 2025.

Eli Kyeyune (Ugandan, 1936–2000). A mid-century Ugandan modernist whose portraiture has been re-evaluated across the last decade, peaking with The Reader at KES 1,526,200 in 2024.