Patron with a big heart hosts third Lamu painters festival

Apart from the Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore who consistently supports arts, most Kenyan senior corporates have a lot to learn about the value and virtue associated with assisting artists, be they painters, performers or writers of various genres.

Artists

They might take a leaf from the playbook of retired German restaurateur Herbert Menzer who for the third time in the last six years has hosted visual artists from Europe and Kenya in his ‘home away from home’ on Lamu Island.

Inviting more than a dozen artists to be part of his two-week Lamu Painters Festival, which just ended last weekend, Herbert doesn’t cover all their expenses. The Europeans have to pay their air fare to Africa, but once they reach Nairobi he covers the flights to and from Lamu as well as the artists’ accommodations and meals.

One might ask ‘what’s in it for him?’ But the reality is that Herbert has worked hard for his wealth and once he discovered Lamu, he felt compelled to share the experience of what many have described as ‘heaven on earth’ with contemporary artists whose artwork he admires.

This year they included fellow Germans Jurgen Leippart, Sibylle Bross, Roland Klimp, Meike Lipp, Hartmut Beier and Joachim Sauter, Dutch painters including Piet Groenendijk, Diederik Vermeulen, Dorien van Diemen, Karin Voogd and Gineke Zikken, Russian artists Natasha Dik and Svetlana Tiourina and one Kenya-based Briton Sophie Walbeoffe.

Invited

But Herbert has also included outstanding Kenyan artists in the mix. In the past, he’s invited Patrick Mukabi, Justus Kyalo, Patrick Kinuthia, Samuel Githui, El Tayeb and Fitsum as well as Peter Elungat, Peter Ngugi, Chelenge van Rampelberg and Timothy Brooke whom Herbert invited to paint at Shela together with Sophie late last year.

This year Herbert invited two young Kenyan painters to his festival, both of whom are relatively new on the local art scene, but both have already made their mark as artists of significance.

Nadia Wamunyu is just 22 but as she’s been painting practically all her life and was mentored by the marvelous Kenyan painter Patrick Mukabi for several years, it wasn’t surprising that two years back she won first prize in the student category in the annual Manjano Art competition.

The other artist he invited was Zihan Kassam who came not only to paint but also to assist in writing up the final catalogue chronicling the artists’ immense body of work produced during the Festival at a rate of (on average) one painting per artist per day.

Painting

Some artists were even more prolific. For instance, Nadia who worked mostly in charcoal on paper produced many more than one work a day. So did her new-found best friend Svetlana since she spent most of her days sketching the sights and her personal impressions of the people she observed.

In contrast, most of the artists worked in oil paints on canvas which is why they laboured a bit more painstakingly on their art.

Not that they were more professional or proficient than Svetlana or Nadia but to complete a painting in oils can take some artists weeks. The fact that nearly all the Europeans managed to complete even one a day was a marvel.

But every day was designed by Herbert to offer the artists a fresh new environment, stimulus and inspiration, so that one day they went to Makongeni village to paint, another day they took speedboats to Pate Island and other days they painted either at Peponi Hotel, in Lamu’s town square or on Manda Island.

Every day was different and meant to inspire the artists, most of whom considered themselves ‘plein air’ meaning they preferred painting out of doors.

And from the look of the multifaceted art exhibition that opened at the Baitil Aman Hotel in Shela toward the end of the Festival, it was clear Herbert’s project (which he’s apparently modeled after similar painters’ festivals that take place every summer in Holland) was an overwhelming success.

Elite

But if one asks, ‘What’s his payback? He must get something of value from his stunning financial and artistic initiative,” then cynics can be assured, Herbert is entitled to one painting from every artist as a gift for his generosity.

“But that’s standard practice at every painters festival,” said Sibylle Bross, the Stuttgart-based artist who happily gave Herbert whatever painting he liked.

So while this kind of philanthropy might seem otherworldly to some, incomprehensible to others, or simply wasteful to people who believe hording money is the most meaningful way to live, Kenyan elites might learn a lesson or two from Herbert Menzer who looks like one of the happiest and healthiest men that I know.