Lot 15

David Mzuguno (Tanzanian 1951 – 2010)
Harvest of the Sunflower, circa 1995
Signed ‘By Dvd Mzuguno’ (lower mid-left)
Enamel on masonite
60 x 60 cm
KES 375,000 – 500,000
(US$) 3,000 – 4,000
Provenance: Private collection
Sold KES 422,640

During his lifetime, David Mzuguno was widely regarded as one of the leading Tingatinga painters of the time. He began his career in the arts with the Tingatinga Arts Cooperative Society, where he started to develop an approach quite different from the other painters. In 1989 he left to pursue his own technique, taking the collective style in a new direction.

The opulent depictions of the natural world in Mzuguno’s paintings are inspired by his roots in the Kilimanjaro region where he was born and in later years, his concern for the environmental degradation of Tanzania’s natural resources. In 2009, he participated in a residency programme in China at the Shenzhen Fine Art Institute. He died in 2010, shortly after a very successful exhibition in Kampala with nearly 100 works on display. In 2013, Mzuguno’s work was shown in a solo exhibition at the Alliance Française in Dar es Salaam. A book about Mzunguno was published by Mkuki Na Nyota Publishers Ltd, Tanzania, in 2013 titled ‘David Mzuguno – The Last Days of the Master,’ written by Pascal Bogaert.