Ahmed Shibrain
The Tempest
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 2026 edition includes works by Kenyan painter Boniface Maina and Tanzanian artist K.F. Msangi, both of whom attracted strong bidding at the 2025 edition, with their works selling above pre-sale estimates.
Dated 1987, K.F. Msangi’s My First Wife (estimate KES 900 000 – 1 500 000 / US$7 000 – 11 800) is a satirical depiction of consumer avarice that recalls details from Ayi Kwei Armah’s classic novel The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968). Msangi’s work was recently the subject of a survey exhibition at Circle Art Gallery. Boniface Maina’s Contemplating in Bliss (estimate KES 300 000 – 500 000 / US$2 350 – 3 900) dates from 2011.
“The catalogue for this year’s edition includes a number of important Kenyan artists, ranging from contemporary figures Cyrus Kabiru, Peterson Kamwathi, Boniface Maina and Kaloki Nyamai to expressionist painter Sane Wadu, founder of the Ngecha Artists Association, and his wife, Eunice Wadu, a pioneering woman artist in East Africa,” says Danda Jaroljmek, Director of Circle Art Agency, who founded Art Auction East Africa in 2013. “There is also a strong selection of works by Sudanese artists, including Salah Elmur, Rashid Diab and Ahmed Shibrain, a founding figure of the influential Khartoum School.”
Artist, Salah Elmur, who was mentored by Khartoum School member Kamala Ishaq, is best known for his vibrant and symbolic portraits, which evoke memories of his childhood and youth in Sudan. Elmur left Sudan in 1989 and has lived in Cairo since the early 1990s. The sale features two works that track his evolving style. Dated 2019, Untitled (Seated Figure) (estimate KES 1 200 000 – 2 600 000 / US$10 000 – 20 000) showcases his signature cubistic treatment of facial features and use of warm, earthy tones.
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. Highlights include renowned modernist sculptor Samuel Wanjau’s carved bird sculpture (estimate KES 900 000 – 1 200 000 / US$7 000 – 9 000). Wanjau received his training at Akamba, a commercial cooperative, before moving to Paa Ya Paa Arts Centre, also in Nairobi, where he developed a personal and expressive style.
“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 35
Ahmed Shibrain
The Tempest
About this Item
signed; inscribed '11' on the reverse
Provenance
The Artist's Estate.
Notes
Professor Ahmed Shibrain was a Sudanese modernist painter, graphic artist and educator, and a founding figure of the Khartoum School. Born in Berber, Sudan, he studied at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Khartoum before continuing his studies at London’s Central School of Arts in 1957.
Shibrain’s art practice brought Arabic calligraphy, Islamic visual traditions and Sudanese and African cultural references into dialogue with modernist abstraction, contributing to the development of Sudanawiyya and the wider Hurufiyya movement. He later served as Head of the Graphics Department and Dean of the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum.
Shibrain exhibited internationally, including at the 9th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil (1967), Contemporary African Art, National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. (1974), and The Right to Write, National Gallery, Amman (1996). Shibrain’s artwork was subsequently featured in major exhibitions including Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s and In the Heart of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination Rises.
In 2003, Shibrain was awarded the Republic of Sudan Order of Merit in recognition of his contributions. In 2008, he was also honoured by the Ruler of Sharjah for his contribution to the development of art and culture and to the Sharjah Calligraphy Biennial.
Shibrain’s artwork is held in institutional collections including the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art and the National Archives, Washington, D.C.; and the Weltkulturenmuseum in Frankfurt, Germany, among other international collections.
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