Eunice Wadu
Marriage Thoughts
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 46
Eunice Wadu
Marriage Thoughts
About this Item
signed, dated /94, numbered 3/3 and inscribed with the title in pencil in the margin
Provenance
The Artist's Collection.
Notes
One of the pioneering women artists in Kenya, Eunice Wadu began her career as a painter in the late 1980s. She was initially shy about sharing her work, keeping it hidden from even the eyes of her partner, Sane Wadu, himself an artist. It was only after their marriage that Wadu shared her artworks, much to her husband’s delight and encouragement.
A painter and printmaker, Wadu’s eye-catching, layered abstractions challenge viewers to discover hidden forms and messages within the work, while her prints capture quotidian scenes and moments.
She had her first solo exhibition, Heart Burden in 1993, at the Goethe Institut in Nairobi, and has gone on to participate in exhibitions locally and internationally. Her artwork was, notably, included in Out of Bounds: Women Artists from Africa at the University of New England Art Gallery in 2004, and Not an Ocean Between Us: Voices of Women from Africa and the African Diaspora at Diggs Gallery, Winston-Salem State University, 2006-2007. Wadu was also one of the artists featured in the 1995 Ngecha Artists’ Association Inaugural Exhibition at Gallery Watatu.
Alongside her art practice, Wadu pursues social activism and community work, with special attention to issues faced by women. She and her husband have established an art therapy centre in Naivasha and hold weekly art workshops for children.
Biography courtesy of Circle Art Gallery.
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