TINGA TINGA COLLECTION IN OUR FEBRUARY EMPORIUM

DATE: Sunday 26 February

LOCATION: Sydney

Theodore Bruce is pleased to announce a large collection of Tinga Tinga works to be included in our Emporium Auction | February.

The works are from a collection of a former airline executive, who travelled widely and was based in Tanzania for a time.

Tinga Tinga art came into being around 1968 and the name is derived from the movement’s founder Edward Tingatinga. When Tingatinga died in 1972, the Tingatinga School was already very popular and inspired many followers to the vibrant naive style.

In the years following Tingatinga’s death, the subject matter has moved naturally from the “Big Five” to the new urban & multicultural society that is now Dar es Salaam and has transformed Tanzanian society.

It is believed that the style came from a traditional art form of decorating the walls of hut and is related to the hut wall decorations of the Makua & Makonde people, which were first described in Karl Heule’s book Negerleben in Deutsch-Ost Afrika, 1906. There is documentary evidence that paintings such as these where found in Dar es Salaam and where made by Makua & Makonde migrants.

Tinga Tinga art uses the vibrant colours of enamel bicycle paint on masonite boards, materials both cheap and plentiful. The subject matter are often the “Big Five” of African animals, elephant, lion, giraffe, hippotomus, antelope, surrounded by motifs found in Swahili traditional design. The amimals are painted large to fit inside the frame of the masonite and decorative surface patterns fitted around them.

Some of the artist’s included in the Collection are:
BH Bushiry, Rashid Jaffary, Peter Martin, Haidi, Mohamed Charinda, Rajabiu Chiwaya & others.