Kiure Francis Msangi: From Makerere to Stanford and the Nairobi Years: Circle Art Gallery One
Circle is proud to present a major retrospective for Kiure Francis Msangi in Nairobi on behalf of the artist’s family who will attend the opening. This exhibition brings together a collection of paintings, prints, drawings and archival material spanning more than four decades of Msangi's artistic career.
Although widely respected during his lifetime as an artist and educator, opportunities to experience Msangi's work have remained remarkably rare. This retrospective offers an opportunity to reconsider his contribution to the development of modern East African art, placing his practice within the wider history of the region while introducing his work to a new generation of audiences.
Kiure Francis Msangi (Tanzanian, 1937 - 2003) was a painter, printmaker, graphic designer, illustrator, calligrapher, educator and scholar whose career spanned Tanzania, Kenya and the United States. He belonged to a generation of East African artists who came of age around independence, when questions of culture, identity and the role of art in a newly self-determined Africa were being debated.
This exhibition offers an opportunity to look at Msangi's life and work: from the landscapes and figures of his early career, through to his experiments with printmaking and his political and socially driven works.
Msangi believed passionately that Africans should be able to appreciate and love art, and that art should be understood as part of life rather than as something reserved for a specialist minority. He taught generations of students, many of whom would go on to become artists, designers and educators themselves. More than twenty years after his death, Msangi is re-emerging as an important figure in the history of modern East African art.
This exhibition is an invitation to viewers to look closely, ask questions and find different meanings in what they see before them.
biography below the images
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (portrait of artist's wife Grace), circa mid 60s -
K.F Msangi, Untitled (mother and child under the new moon) 69/100, 1967
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K.F Msangi, The Kiss, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Reading a Letter, ED 32/100, Undated
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K.F Msangi, The African Mother, ED 79/114, c. 1970 - 73
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K.F Msangi, Pounding Maize, ED 44/45, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (Playing Music), 1967
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K.F Msangi, The Twist, 1962
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K.F Msangi, Braiding, ED 8/100, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (mothers with children), ED 4/100, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Women carrying water, ED 9/100, 1967
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (woman cooking), Undated
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K.F Msangi, Making Njohi, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (carrying hay), Undated
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K.F Msangi, AFCON, checking date
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K.F Msangi, Making Njohi (in color), ED 61/80, 1990
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K.F Msangi, Karatina Market, circa 1980
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K.F Msangi, Work in the Library, c. 1960 - 62
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (woman in lesos), 1962
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (reclining woman), 1963
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (reclining man), 1963
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K.F Msangi, Convent Drive, 1987
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K.F Msangi, The Crucification: 20th Century AD, ED 9/75, circa 1970s
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K.F Msangi, Implantation of the Soul (Reincarnation), ED 3/75, 1977
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K.F Msangi, When the Silver Chord Breaks (At Death), AP 1, 1977
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (body and spirit), Undated
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K.F Msangi, Me and My Reflection, ED 5/5, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Confrontation, ED 2/2, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (Frogs), Undated
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (shoal of fish), Undated
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (two catfish), Undated
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (fish and catfish), Undated
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K.F Msangi, Lions At A Kill, ED 68/107, c. 1970 - 73
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K.F Msangi, Ujamaa (Arusha Declaration), ED 48/100, 1967
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K.F Msangi, Bastion of Apartheid: The Dutch Reformed Church in SA, ED 10/117, c. 1970 - 1973
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K.F Msangi, Burning the Slums of Nairobi, c. 1970 - 73
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K.F Msangi, My Dream Walk, ED 67/117, c. 1970 - 1973
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K.F Msangi, His First Lady (AKA My First Wife), 1987
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K.F Msangi, Cat, c. 1960 - 62
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K.F Msangi, Reclining Nude, no edition listed, 1962
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K.F Msangi, Kilimanjaro, ED 1/2, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (Baobab and a hill) ED 1/2, Undated
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K.F Msangi, Animated Baobab Tree, c. 1970 - 73
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K.F Msangi, Untitled (nude in red), 1970
Biography
Kiure Francis Msangi received his early teacher training at Mpwapwa Teachers’ College before studying Art and Education at Makerere University, Uganda, where he was awarded the Trowell Prize for top performance and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art and Diploma in Education (1964). He earned a BFA in Graphic Design (1975) and an MA in Art Education with Distinction (1977) from the California College of Art and Craft in San Francisco, before completing a Doctor of Education at Stanford University (1987). He exhibited both locally and internationally throughout his lifetime.
Msangi was also an author and illustrator, publishing Art in East Africa (1972), Art Handbook for Schools: Guide to the Non-artist Teacher on How to Teach Art (1975) and illustrating the children’s book Samaki Mdogo Mweusi (1981).
His work has been documented in African Arts Magazine, and is held in collections including Stanford University, San Jose State University, the late Maya Angelou’s collection, as well as many others.
He taught at Kenyatta University from 1986 until his death in 2003.
