Art show with affordable paintings

The Kenya Museum Society’s Affordable Art Show which opens tonight at the Nairobi National Museum Courtyard is definitely a mixed bag.

It’s got some fabulous works of art at reasonable prices, but also some paintings and sculptures that could have been weeded out prior to the opening at 6pm.

Billed as the biggest ‘juried’ contemporary art exhibition in the region, the claim is meant to say something about both the quality and quantity contained in the collection. For me, quantity unfortunately outweighs quality this year.

But the beauty of the KMS show is that it avails young and older local artists an opportunity to expose their art to an audience that tends to be interested in buying Kenyan art.

There’s just one caveat: KMS enforces the price range within which artists can sell their work.

All the art must be priced for less than Sh100,000. Occasionally, they can even insist an artist reduce the price that he or she has set on their work. It was something that compelled at least one artist to take away her works before the opening as she felt undervalued by KMS.

On the positive side, the big advantage of the KMS fair is that it’s one art venue where shoppers can be assured they will find incredible bargains. That in itself makes a trip to the KMS Show which runs through Sunday until 4pm well worth the effort.

230 artists

This past week more than 230 artists presented 479 works of art to KMS volunteers at the museum. On hand October 15th (the one day set for artists to submit their work) were both young, relatively unknown artists as well as many seasoned, established ones.

Among the latter was everyone from Michael Soi, Morris Foit, Patrick Kinuthia and Zachariah Mbutha to Wanyu Brush, Simon Muriithi, Anne Mwiti and Joseph Cartoon.

What’s most surprisingly affordable are the prints and miniature paintings, most of which are priced at Sh10,000 or less.

If you’re not put off by the size of the art, one can get a lovely miniature print or painting by the likes of Patrick Kinuthia, Allan Githuka, Anne Mwiti or Adrian Nduma who’s currently got a one-man exhibition entitled Wild and Colourful up at the Village Market for another week.

Meanwhile, in contrast to KMS’ short but sweet show (which raffles off art works by Ashif Malamba of Maasai Mbili, El Said Fawaz and Evans Yogon tonight), the Red Hill Art Gallery has mounted an important exhibition entitled African Modern which will run through November.

Featuring Kenyan art assembled between 1970 and 2000, by Red Hill’s founder-art collector Hellmuth Rossler-Musch, the collection which is currently not for sale, has several wonderful works by Ugandan and Tanzanian artists as well.

He’s got exquisite paintings by Geoffrey Mukasa and P. Ssengendo of Uganda as well as exceptional pieces George Lilanga and Edward Tingatinga of Tanzania.

He’s even got several rare black and white prints by Jak Katarikawe from his early years of living in Kenya. He refers to these artists as ‘old masters’ and in the case of the non-Kenyan artists, that term could very well apply.

But it isn’t quite applicable to the Kenyan artists since they came into prominence during the ‘reign’ at Gallery Watatu of the late Ruth Schaffner which only ran from 1985 to 1996 when she passed on.

Yet most of the authentic ‘old masters’ of Kenya passed through Gallery Watatu from the late sixties and early seventies after the Gallery was founded by Yony Waite, Robin Anderson and David Hart in 1969.

These included the likes of the late Louis Mwaniki, Ancent Soi, Eli Kyeyune and also Jak.

There were many other ‘old masters’ who took part in exhibitions and artists’ workshops at Paa ya Paa Gallery which began in 1965. Paa ya Paa was the first Kenyan gallery to have a uniquely Pan African perspective on the arts.

It was a viewpoint shared by the former Vice President of Kenya, Joseph Murumbi, which is one reason why Murumbi’s business partner and friend, Alan Donovan has worked so hard to preserve Murumbi’s art collection (currently housed at the Kenya National Archives and the Nairobi Gallery) under the auspices of the Murumbi Trust.

The Red Hill collection is still well worth seeing as it contains priceless paintings by Kenyans Joel Oswaggo, Annabelle Wanjiku, Kivutha Mbuno, Wanyu Brush, Peter Kayako, Sam Magga and Rosemary Karuga among others.

Finally, Red Hill also has works by Patricia Njeri Ndungu whose brand new collection of colourful multimedia paintings is currently at Banana Hill Gallery.