Nadir Tharani (Tanzanian, born 1952)
For Othman and Saghir, 2014
Signed ‘Tharani’ (lower right)
Mixed media on paper
90 x 63.4 cm
Ksh 250,000 – 360,000
(US$) 2,200 – 3,200
Provenance: direct from the artist
Sold Ksh 234,800
Born in Moshi, Tanzania, Nadir Tharani studied Architecture at UCL in London whilst exploring the visual arts – including graphics, print work, and illustration, at the same time. He was a founding member of the architectural magazine 9H in the UK in the late 1970s. Tharani has held several solo exhibitions in Dar es Salaam and has also exhibited in the UK, Denmark, Iraq, Finland and Kenya. Selected group exhibitions include the touring exhibition Africa Now in 2008–2009 and East African Encounters and Paper II, both at Circle Art Gallery, Nairobi, in 2014 and 2016. His graphic and print work has been shown at various print biennales in London and Berlin, he has written and illustrated numerous children’s books and he has designed site-specific architectural installations in the UK, India and Tanzania.
This painting by Tharani is a companion piece to For Ali and Aziz which was sold in the auction of 2015. For Othman and Saghir is also dedicated to those who attempted to make the world a better place but who came to a sudden and unhappy ending. On the other hand, Tharani notes, “a painting always carries the artist’s shadow.”