Lot 45 Morris Foit
Morris Foit (Kenyan, born 1940)
Mother and Twins, undated
Signed ‘signature’ (verso)
Wooden sculpture
65 x 36 x 40 cm
Ksh 400,000-700,000
(US$ 3,740-6,540)
Bought in
Provenance: private collection of Marc van Rampelberg
Morris Foit is one of Kenya’s most renowned and respected sculptors. Born in the 1940s as Morris Njau, he renamed himself out of respect for his Czech professor who taught him carving at the University of Nairobi.
In his early career Foit exhibited with Gallery Watatu, since then he has taken part in many workshops and exhibitions in Kenya and abroad, and his work is represented in private collections locally and internationally.
The infants carved at the knees of the squatting woman in Mother and Twins visualise the unborn children of a women suffering from infertility, her head turned away in an expression of grief.
This is a major work by the artist, whose sculptures rarely come on the market, especially works of this scale and excellence.