Lilian Nabulime
Waiting
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 56
Lilian Nabulime
Waiting
About this Item
signed and dated
Provenance
Private Collection.
Notes
Lilian Mary Nabulime is a prominent Ugandan sculptor, and senior lecturer of Sculpture at the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Arts, Kampala. She uses a range of materials including clay, stone and wood to create expressive works that embody social and feminist agendas and attempt to promote discussion as well as pushing the meaning of art beyond the visual.
Nabulime holds a PhD in Fine Art from Newcastle University, UK. She has exhibited her work worldwide with multiple solo and group exhibitions in the USA, UK, Norway and Sweden. She has also been the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the Commonwealth Fellowship Award, UK in 1997 and 2012. She has participated in residencies at the Bezalel Art Academy and the School of Fine Art in Israel. Nabulime has been profiled by the Almas Art Foundation, which exhibited her work at Somerset House, London in 2023.
Nabulime created this painting in 1998 as she was beginning her transition into sculpture. Waiting belongs to a small group of rarely seen paintings, which were exhibited by Kampala’s Weganda Gallery in 2025 in a presentation of both her paintings and sculptures. The work is a rare example of Nabulime’s practice as a painter and was inspired by a personal experience in which she received a lift from a stranger while travelling from Berlin to Munich.
Biography courtesy of Circle Art Gallery.
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