David Mzuguno

 

Number 1

“Whilst he attended secondary school, with art as one of his favourite subjects, he began to take note of the local artists painting in the Tinga Tinga highly-styalised tradition.”

                   avid was the elder artist of the Jua Gallery, and

                   perhaps the most established of the Gallery’ featured

                   painters. Having started working in the Tinga Tinga tradition, David has developed his own totally unique style, one that defies classification. His works feature immensely detailed and sun-rich riots of vegetation – a veritable jungle of saturated colours – with the rural life of his traditional tribesmen and women woven into the fabric of those distinctive works. Detailed, compelling, evocative and mesmerizing, David’s work never tires the eye.


A Mzuguno work is a totally and immediately distinctive, and instantly recognizable as such, even without his distinctive signature.

David started painting in 1967 at age fifteen, and three years later he won third prize in the Esso Calendar Competition – a prestigious art competition in East Africa. He hails from the Kilimanjaro are of Tanzania, and is from the Mpare tribe. He was born in 1951 in the village of Gonja Bombo, where he attended primary school in the Lutheran Mission. He moved to Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania’s capital city, and went to live with his uncle in the Msasani district. Whilst he attended secondary school, with art as one of his favourite subjects, he began to take note of the local artists painting in the Tinga Tinga highly-styalised tradition.

After high school David worked as a miner to earn a living, but he continued to paint in his spare time and he started to sell his work in and around the city, to the foreign visitors. He started to paint in the Tinga Tinga style, and within time earned a reputation in the universities and top hotels around the city where he exhibited his work. He became a painter full time, and pursued his sole career from his home in Kibaha, in the forested hills that surround Dar-es-Salaam.

A highly skillful artist, Mzuguno’s work is typified by a great originality – depicting meticulously drawn scenes of rural life with lush swirls of intricate and exotic vegetation. David Mzuguno’s work is highly prized and widely exhibited, and his beautiful pieces grace the walls of many an international collector of East African art. Regrettably he passed away on 6th June 2010.

Shamba

Acrylic on wood

Commissioned 2007 for Shamba House


Private Collection

Number  2

Mulberry

Acrylic  on Eucalyptus wood

Commissioned 2007 for Mulberry House


Private Collection