Geoffrey Mukasa

Geoffrey Mukasa was born in 1954 to one of Uganda’s most prominent doctors. Many people expected him to follow in his footsteps but the murder of his father during Idi Amin’s coup brought drastic changes to his life, including his leaving Uganda to study art.

Mukasa travelled to India to take a degree in Art at Lucknow University, graduating in 1984. During this time he was greatly inspired by his exposure to European and Indian aesthetic values. He threw himself into his work with vigour, focusing mainly on human relationships with the environment and one another. In the early 1990s, on returning to Uganda, Mukasa became a key figure in the movement to revive cultural life in Kampala. This cultural movement was seen as a unifying force and an inspiration for the nation’s recovery after years of military dictatorship.

His work is widely collected and although appears at international auctions, is becoming harder to find. Birds at Home is a special and unusual Mukasa, being the first pure landscape that we have found.

Publications include Mukasa Geoffrey – the artist’s life in Uganda, AKA Gallery Kampala published by Maria Fischer, Rose Kirumira, Paul Lubowa and Josephine Mukasa, 2011.