Tingatinga

It’s been a while since Tanzania.  Actually, it seems quite a while since I was there.  But I have a few reminders around of the trip, and two in particular that I haven’t gotten around to taking care of.  

Tanzania is famous for a style of painting called Tingatinga, so named by the founder of the style Edward Tingatinga who started painting around 1968.  For the most part, it includes very bright colors and very stylized characters - whether people or animals - set out in various patterns and configurations.  If you look at one of the older blog posts, you’ll see some Tingatinga in the photo of the street market that was by the hotel.

Well, the last day I was in Tanzania one of our classmates that was from the US Embassy took us to the Tingatinga Arts Cooperative Society.  There was Tingatinga of all shapes and sizes there - canvas, cups, plates, lamps, pencils - you name it, if you could paint on it they put Tingatinga on it.  The folks I was with went wild trying to decide what to buy, negotiating prices down and figuring out how they were going to get it all home.  Perhaps the best buy was by our Mongolian colleague who started negotiating on her own with one of the sellers, then our colleague from Dar Es Salaam stepping in and continued the negotiations in Swahili.  That took almost half an hour, but she walked out with 4 nice pieces for around $130!  

Well, just as the last person was getting his stuff packaged up, the bug bit me.  I took a fancy to a couple of paintings that were way larger than I’d originally considered (and decided not to buy) and asked my colleague over.  She said let me negotiate this - 30 seconds later the deal was done.  I asked her what she said and she replied, “I told him, two big ones for the same price as the Mongolian woman - come on, let’s save 30 minutes of negotiating.”  The guy had an exhausted (or was that defeated) look when he said, “Ok.”

My apologies, but I don’t think the reproduction of color on the monitor does these justice, but the first one is of a bunch of birds.  Ann will know what went through my mind when I saw it, but you’ll have to ask her to tell you the story.  Anyway, the painting makes me smile!

As you can see, both paintings are colorful, bright and playful.  And they’re each 30” square.  

They were also framed.  Unfortunately I didn’t get my two top picks.  As the guy was taking them off the frames, removing dozens and dozens of framing tacks as quickly as he could (despite me telling him to slow down, he didn’t need to go so fast) he tore the canvas of the second one.  The tear cut into the painting itself.  It was a bit darker with a couple of giraffes and, you guessed it, more birds (you have to ask Ann . . .).

Well suddenly the search was on, going through dozens and dozens of flat canvasses and mounted canvasses leaning against the wall.  They were determined to find a similar painting by the same artist.  In the end, we came close, except that the replacement included zebras instead of giraffes.

And best of all, more birds!

So we wound up rolling them up and putting them into a tube that was way too large to fit in my luggage so I had to carry it all the way to Monrovia.  But they survive and sit rolled out flat on one of the beds in my spare bedroom.  Now I’ve got to get them framed!  I keep forgetting to find out where I can get that done.

Anyway, $65.00 for two exquisitely detailed paintings that make me smile - what a bargain!