Mohamed Charinda
Untitled (Composition with Crab, Fish and Birds)
About the SessionNAIROBI – Following their successful collaboration in 2025, Strauss & Co, Africa’s leading auction house, and Danda Jaroljmek, Director of Art Auction East Africa, will present Art Auction East Africa | Strauss & Co, a 67-lot sale bringing together modern and contemporary art from East Africa and the wider continent. The live-virtual sale will be held at Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi on Wednesday, 28 October, 2026, 7pm EAT. The catalogue spans a diversity of East African countries, including Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Sudan and Uganda, alongside works by artists from Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Nigeria. Works on paper, photography and sculpture complements the strong painting consignment. “The selection invites collectors to discover East Africa’s diverse modernist histories, particularly those beyond the Anglophone world,” says Susie Goodman. “In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in East African modernists, with artists associated with the Khartoum School shown in museums and fairs globally. Our work as an auction house rooted in Africa is ensuring this rediscovery is not temporary. We are delighted to partner with Danda Jaroljmek in cultivating a sustainable secondary market for East African modernists active during the era of decolonisation and independence.” A preview exhibition will be held at Circle Art Gallery, Victoria Square, Riara Road, Nairobi, during the two weeks preceding the auction on Wednesday, 28 October 2026.
LOT 17
Mohamed Charinda
Untitled (Composition with Crab, Fish and Birds)
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
About this Item
signed
Provenance
Private Collection.
Notes
Though he emerged from the famous Tingatinga workshop in Dar es Salaam, Mohamed Wasia Charinda developed his own distinct narrative style of painting. Rather than concentrating on idealized scenes of East African wildlife like many of his fellow artists, he depicts complex scenes of rural life, Makua folk tales and historical events.
Alongside scenes of planting and harvesting, he does not shrink from brutal depictions of the East African slave trade, warfare in Uganda or the ritual abuse and murder of albinos. In 1989, he was the first of the Tingatinga artists to make the switch from painting on the original Masonite panels used by E. S. Tingatinga, to painting on canvas or other fabric. This change greatly assisted the marketing of the paintings, since expatriates and tourists could more easily carry the paintings back home with them.
Charinda’s work has been exhibited at the British Museum and is featured in the 2008 survey Angaza Africa: African Art Now. He has exhibited in Switzerland and Reunion Island, amongst others.
Charinda's paintings were also featured in the 2017 exhibit and book, Tresors de L'Islam en Afrique: De Tombouctou a Zanzibar at the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris. This included a version of his depiction of the East African slave and ivory trade, also included in the Indigo Arts collection.
Biography courtesy of Circle Art Gallery.
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