Juma Mwakalinga (1958–2019)
Market Women, Mwenge, 1991
Oil on board
80 × 110 cm
Estimate KES 1,600,000–2,400,000
Bidding
Sold
KES 2,300,000
Hammer price. Buyer's premium of 20% and VAT on the premium are added.
About the work
Cloth sellers at Mwenge sit among bolts of fabric, their figures broken into planes of green, terracotta and white.
Condition
Good.
Provenance
Private collection, London.
The artist
Mwakalinga painted the working life of Dar es Salaam for four decades: the fish market at dawn, the crowds of Kariakoo, the women who sold cloth at Mwenge. He broke each scene into flat, tilting planes of muted green and terracotta, so that a street becomes a pattern of shade and weight. He taught drawing at a secondary school until 2004, and painted at weekends and through the long school holidays.
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