A 1971 enamel-on-board painting of a lion by the late Tanzanian artist Edward Saidi Tingatinga sold for Sh6.5 million on Wednesday evening, a price auctioneers described as a local record ‘by some distance’.
The painting became the highlight of the event that brought together art enthusiasts who bought 61 of 68 items at Nairobi’s Circle Art Gallery on Riara Road.
When the buyer’s premium and taxes are added, the winning bidder for Tingatinga’s untitled painting – which features a lion pawing a tree as a bird watches from atop the tree – will pay Sh7.63 million. Organisers had estimated the painting’s cost at between Sh1.2 million and Sh1.6 million, which means its selling price was roughly four times its range.
The sale, conducted by Art Auction East Africa in partnership with South Africa’s Strauss and Co, raised Sh39.4 million in hammer prices and Sh46.3 million once premiums and taxes were included.
This was the second year that the South African firm was involved in the Nairobi auction, and it witnessed the heaviest investments from art lovers yet.
In 2025, buyers spent well over Sh29 million while in 2024, the figure stood at Sh27 million. In 2023, total sales were Sh23.3 million. Sales for 2022 were above Sh30 million while the 2021 auction netted Sh25.25 million.
Seven lots went unsold, a sell-through rate of 89.71 percent. Dr Alastair Meredith, an art specialist at Strauss and Co who also led part of the auction process, called the sell rate ‘very, very high’.
Dr Meredith, who is also the firm’s global head of art and senior auctioneer, said the Tingatinga artwork drew competition from every channel.
‘The highlight was the Tingatinga that made Sh6.5 million, which I understand is a local record by some distance,’ he told the BDLife after the sale. ‘There was huge interest in that lot, with so many people bidding in the room, on the telephone and online.’
Tingatinga’s career lasted just four years, from 1968 to 1972, before he was shot dead at the age of 40. This is according to his biography on the Circle Art Gallery website. He began painting out of necessity, using enamel bicycle paint on ceiling boards that he could sell cheaply in Dar es Salaam stores, where expatriates noticed and began collecting his work. The style he pioneered has since grown into a large industry in Tanzania.
That history, Dr Meredith said, explains the price.
‘He’s a man that formed a style that many, many others have copied and trialled and tested. They’ve all worked in the mode of Tingatinga. He is the original, I suppose,’ he said.
‘Because he painted very few works, he painted for a very, very short period, his work is incredibly rare, and therefore it’s incredibly in demand.’
Bidding for the work came from Europe and Southern Africa as well as East Africa, he added, a point that matters to a market that has long depended on local buyers.
The Tingatinga painting accounted for 16.5 percent of the evening’s hammer total on its own. The 10 best-selling lots, ranked by amount paid after premium and taxes, together made up 49 percent of it.
The second highest-selling artwork was from Sudanese painter Salah Elmur. The untitled acrylic-on-canvas 2019 painting that contains a seated figure sold for Sh3 million (Sh3.52 million all-in), above the top of its Sh2.6 million estimate.
Elmur, born in 1966 and now based in Cairo, draws on scenes recalled from childhood and on photographs from his family’s studio in compositions that mimic formal portraits while unsettling them. His work is in the collections of MoMA in New York and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, and in 2018 he had a retrospective at the Sharjah Art Museum.
The third highest-selling work was by a Kenyan – Peterson Kamwathi’s monotype diptych titled ‘The Two Horse Race’. It was made in 2004 in reference to the ‘oranges versus bananas’ constitutional referendum. The work went for Sh1.8 million (Sh2.11 million with premium and taxes) against an estimate of Sh420,000 to Sh650,000.
Kamwathi, born in 1980, represented Kenya at the 2017 Venice Biennale and is collected by the British Museum.
Two carved wood sculptures tied for fourth place at Sh1.5 million each (Sh1.76 million after premium and taxes). One was an untitled work depicting a bird with chicks by Samuel Wanjau, a Nyeri-born sculptor who died in 2013 aged 75. He began as a carver of curios for tourists after Independence before meeting Elimo Njau of Paa ya Paa Arts Centre and exploring new styles. His work’s estimated cost before the auction was Sh900,000 to Sh1.2 million.
The other sculpture was ‘Dreaming’, a 2000 item by Anthony Wanjau, who lived from 1971 to 2023. It was the evening’s biggest surprise. While its estimate was Sh100,000 to Sh180,000, its selling price of Sh1.5 million was more than eight times the top figure.it drew intense bidding for more than seven minutes.
Asked why the ‘Dreaming’ sculpture attracted so much interest, Dr Meredith said: ‘It’s a very beautiful sculpture. It’s a very gentle sculpture.’
‘It has what we might call crossover appeal, in that you might like the work because you know and like the artist. And I think you also might love the work if you know very little about art… It’s very tactile. You want to sort of touch it.’
Another top seller was an oil-on-canvas painting titled ‘The Tempest’ by Sudan’s Ahmed Shibrain. Shibrain, who died in 2017, was a founding figure of the Khartoum School and studied at London’s Central School of Arts from 1957. He later became dean of the College of Fine and Applied Art in Khartoum. ‘The Tempest’ sold slightly below its Sh1.45 million low estimate.
Then there was the acrylic-on-canvas work ‘Women’ by Sudan’s Rashid Diab that sold for Sh1.1 million. Diab returned to Khartoum in 1999 after nine years teaching in Madrid and opened the Dara Art Gallery.
Mozambique’s Mario Macilau followed with his untitled print from 2013 that sold for Sh1 million. Macilau swapped his mother’s mobile phone for a Nikon camera in 2007, and his profile by the Circle Art Gallery says that was how he launched his career as a professional photographer.
The last two in the top 10 sellers list sold for under Sh1 million. One was a 1987 oil painting ‘My First Wife’ by Tanzania’s Kiure Francis Msangi that sold for Sh850,000. Msangi, who died in 2003 at the age of 67, taught at Nairobi and Kenyatta universities and had a PhD from Stanford University. The auction house described ‘My First Wife’ as a satire of consumer greed.
The other was an untitled oil-on-canvas project by Kenya’s Ancent Soi, which features wildebeest. It sold for Sh800,000. Soi, born in Machakos, won the 1971 competition to design the Munich Olympics poster.
Viewed by nationality, Tanzanian works were the most consistent performers. All 10 lots by Tanzanian artists sold, fetching Sh10.2 million in hammer prices. All nine Sudanese lots found buyers too, for Sh7.8 million. Kenyan artists had the largest number of lots and the highest total, at Sh11.8 million, with 22 of 24 sold.
Ugandan artists did not fare too well, however. Five of the seven unsold lots were Ugandan, including two of Fabian Mpagi’s three lots, and only 13 of 18 Ugandan lots found buyers.
The other two unsold lots were Kenyan. They were Michael Musyoka’s ‘Foreign Exchange’ and Kamal Shah’s ‘Incantations #3’.
Said Dr Meredith: ‘There were a handful of works that didn’t sell, and that’s natural.’ He added that the house would try to sell them through offers ‘in the coming days’.
The catalogue spanned artists from nine countries: Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Nigeria.
In an interview with BDLife ahead of the auction, Strauss and Co’s executive director Susie Goodman said the sale’s reach was the point. About 250 bidders had registered from across the continent, the US and Europe, she said, and the house had registrations from 54 countries.