Lot 2 George William Kyeyune
George William Kyeyune (Ugandan, born 1962)
Nude, 2003
Signed ‘George Kyeyune’ (verso)
Oil on hard board
94 x 59 cm
Ksh 270,000-370,000
(US$ 2,500-3,500)
Sold Ksh 645,700
Provenance: private collection of Klaus Betz
George Kyeyune is a painter and sculptor whose works display perceptive observations of everyday moments and people.
Kyeyune graduated from the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Arts, Kampala in 1985. He then travelled to India where he achieved an MFA, specializing in Sculpture, from the Maharaja Sayajiraho University of Baroda. The 3 years that he spent in Gujurat were transformative to Kyeyune’s artistic practice; through looking at the Indian religions and art forms which survived colonialism he was encouraged to question his own cultural inheritance.
On returning to Kampala, Kyeyune re-joined the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Arts, teaching Sculpture. He continued his own practice, sculpting and exhibiting widely in Kampala, and in 1996 he returned also to painting. In 1999 he received a scholarship for a doctoral study in History of African Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London.
The seller was one of the first to begin collecting Kyeyune’s work, from the time he graduated from Makerere in 1985. This nude comes from the turn of the century, and demonstrates Kyeyune’s profound touch, after twenty years of refinement.