David Mzuguno
Kilimanjaro Village Life
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 18
David Mzuguno
Kilimanjaro Village Life
About this Item
signed
Provenance
Private Collection.
Notes
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, Tanzania, in 2013 titled David Mzuguno – The Last Days of the Master, written by Pascal Bogaert.
Biography courtesy of Circle Art Gallery
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