Late Kenyatta University art teacher Kiure Francis Msangi gets a Nairobi retrospective

Kiure Francis Msangi (1937–2003) was a painter, printmaker, illustrator and teacher whose career spanned Tanzania, Kenya and the United States. The Tanzanian artist trained at Makerere University in Uganda, took a doctorate at Stanford University in California, and from 1986 until his death in 2003 taught at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, according to the biography published by Circle Art Gallery.

A retrospective, "Kiure Francis Msangi: From Makerere to Stanford and the Nairobi Years", has been on at Circle Art Gallery in Lavington since 9 September and closes on Saturday 10 October. The gallery is at Victoria Square on Riara Road. It is open from 10am to 5pm on weekdays and from 12pm to 5pm at weekends, or by appointment, and is closed on public holidays. Saturday 10 October is Mazingira Day, a public holiday.

Circle describes the show as a major retrospective, mounted on behalf of Msangi's family, who were to attend the opening. It brings together paintings, prints, drawings and archive material spanning more than four decades. The gallery's text says that although Msangi was widely respected in his lifetime as an artist and educator, opportunities to experience his work "have remained remarkably rare".

Msangi first trained as a teacher at Mpwapwa Teachers' College. At Makerere he took a Bachelor of Fine Art and a Diploma in Education in 1964 and won the Trowell Prize, Circle says. A biographical note on the Frontline States website says he was born in Usangi, in the Kilimanjaro Region, held his first one-man show in Nairobi in 1964 and went on to take part in group and solo shows in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, the United States and Britain.

Art Auction East Africa adds that he taught art at Nairobi and Kenyatta Universities from 1968 to 1973, then went to California on a Fulbright scholarship. Circle's biography lists a BFA in graphic design in 1975 and an MA in art education with distinction in 1977, both from the California College of Arts and Crafts (now the California College of the Arts), and a Doctor of Education from Stanford in 1987.

He also wrote for the classroom. His books include Art in East Africa (1972) and Art Handbook for Schools: Guide to the Non-artist Teacher on How to Teach Art (1975), and he illustrated Samaki Mdogo Mweusi (1981). Circle's text says he believed Africans should be able to appreciate and love art, and that art is part of life, not something kept for a specialist minority.

Portraits in the show include an untitled portrait of his wife Grace from the mid-1960s and an untitled reclining woman from 1963. Scenes of daily life include "Women carrying water" (1967), "Pounding Maize" and "Karatina Market" (about 1980).

Works with political subjects include "Ujamaa (Arusha Declaration)" (1967), "Burning the Slums of Nairobi" and "Bastion of Apartheid: The Dutch Reformed Church in SA", the last two dated about 1970–1973. Art Auction East Africa says his artworks frequently incorporated political themes and were known for confronting "difficult and tragic subject matter".

Two works dated 1977, the year of his master's degree, are "Implantation of the Soul (Reincarnation)" and "When the Silver Chord Breaks (At Death)". "The Crucifixion: 20th Century AD" is from about the 1960s. The list also includes "Mt Kilimanjaro at Dawn" and "Lions At A Kill". From 1987 come "Convent Drive" and "His First Lady (AKA My First Wife)".

Art Auction East Africa describes his paintings as realistic interpretations of life, often in landscape and figure compositions, using "vibrant, thickly applied colours".

One of his paintings, "Lusiki", an oil on canvas of 1961 measuring 66.5 by 111.5 centimetres, was lot 24 in the auction house's 2025 sale. The estimate was KES 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 (US$7,900 to US$12,000, as the auction house gave it). It sold for KES 1,584,900, and the house lists its provenance as the artist's estate. A work called "Lusiki (II)", dated 1967, is in the Circle show.

Msangi's work is held in collections that include Stanford University, San Jose State University and that of the late American poet Maya Angelou, according to both Circle and the auction house.

Circle can be reached on +254 (0)790 289991 or at [email protected].