Nairobi art collection go under the hammer, fetches Sh18.8 million

That artwork you buy at a modest price will one day fetch you a million shillings or more when the time is ripe.

That was the message during the fifth edition of the Modern and Contemporary East African Art Auction at the Villa Rosa Kempinski in Nairobi last week.

A painting, Nudes, by Ugandan Geoffrey Mukasa fetched a cool Sh1.3 million under the hammer within a minute and a half of biding and counter biding that started with an offer of Sh500,000, on a night that artists from the rest of East Africa fared better than their Kenyan counterparts.

Nomadic existence

Acquired from the late artist’s estate by AKA Gallery Montreal, Canada, the 2006 painting is oil on canvas and backcloth depicting five women sitting on a wooden plank.

The work depicts well-endowed young African women.

Mukasa who was born in 1954 to one of the most prominent doctors in Uganda did not follow his father’s footsteps according to expectation but left his home country after Idi Amin’s killer squads eliminated his dad.

According to Daniel Mbaabu of Stanbic Bank whose institution finances the auction, the total sales of the night was Sh18.8 million representing 85 per cent of the total lots sold.

And it was not only Nudes that made someone a millionaire that night.

The Spirit of Advertising by celebrated Sudanese artist Eltayeb Dawelbait fetched just over a million in the most unexpected turn of events.

The reserve price for this mixed media piece was in the range of Sh550,000 and 650,000.

So the artwork by this artist who has exhibited in TAD Gallery in Rome and Ensign Gallery in London sold for over double the speculative price as bidders went on a race to clinch the pricey product.

The good news is the artist pockets the whole loot because it is provided directly to him.

Eltayeb had his studies cut short at the college of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Sudan after being dismissed for political activities and he spent the following years living a nomadic existence in exile, struggling to make a living and later settled in Nairobi for the last 15 years.

His piece is semi-abstract and is made of some square oil on canvas patched together with each square bearing an expressionless face, some without eyes.

Kenyan artist Gor Soudan’s protest wire sculpture, Bubbles & Shells 3, sold for a whooping Sh645,700 – the highest Kenyan art sale of the night.

Gor is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Kisumu and Nairobi and has subtlety in everything he puts his fingers on, on contemporary political and social issues.

This was a particularly good sale given the reserve price was between Sh150,000 and Sh260,000 making it nearly threefold of sale.

Another Kenyan artist Peterson Kamwathi had his piece, Woodcut Plate sold for Sh75,680 as Michael Soi sold for just over Sh200,000 a large painting, Monday Morning 2014, specifically done for the exhibition and auction.

“It is a good tradition now that we come here in Nairobi with those treasures and sell them to willing buyers,” said Auctioneer Dendy Easton of Sotheby’s, Bonhams.

Idi Amin’s brutality

The organisers, Circle Art Agencies described this year’s auction as a feature of a wide range of art, which included hidden treasures from little-known artists such as the portraits from the 1970s by Ugandan Eli Kyeyene whose work has not been seen in public for decades.

In contrast there were also cutting-edge contemporary artists such as Kenyan Gor Soudan just back from a museum solo show in Tokyo, plus works from Ethiopians Dawit Abebe and Ephrem Solomon, whose paintings were recently acquired for the Saatchi collection in London.