Lot 40

Livingstone G.K. Nkata (Ugandan, born 1939)
Namanwe Forest, undated
Signed ‘Livingstone GK Nkata’ (verso)
Oil on canvas
38.1 x 41.6 cm
US$ 2,500 – 3,500
Provenance: private collection
Sold US$ 4,109

A painter, sculptor, printmaker and curator, Livingstone Nkata was born in Mukono, Uganda in 1939. He first studied at the University of Nairobi before attending Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Art in Kampala where he was influenced by the modernist era of Cecil Todd. Nkata went on to study again at the Pratt Institute of Art and Design in New York, where he wrote a thesis on the place of visual arts in education in Uganda. On his return to Kampala, Nkata worked as an education officer and curator at the Uganda Museum for a number of years, starting in 1969.

Despite records of Nkata’s career being difficult to find, his artwork is known to have been exhibited at Nommo Gallery in Kampala and the Uganda Museum. It is believed that the period under Idi Amin brought Nkata’s work into relative obscurity.

(Art in East Africa, Judith von D. Miller. Frederick Muller Ltd, London, 1975.)