Edward Tingatinga
1932–1972 · Tanzanian painter, founder of the Tingatinga school
Edward Saidi Tingatinga (1932–1972) was a Tanzanian painter and the founder of the eponymous painting style and school. Although he had no formal training and died young, his paintings of animals, landscapes and rural scenes, made on humble materials, gave rise to one of the most recognisable currents of popular painting in East Africa.
Childhood and family
Tingatinga was born in 1932 in a small village in the Tunduru District of Ruvuma Region, in southern Tanzania, near the border with Mozambique. His mother, Agnes Binti Ntembo, was a Christian of the Makua people; his father, Saidi Tingatinga, was a Muslim of the Ngindo people. This is why he received both a Christian name and a Muslim name. He was raised mostly by his mother's family. The village of his birth no longer exists, and his birthplace is disputed, since some sources place him in Mozambique without solid evidence.
Work and first steps as a painter
In the 1950s he worked on sisal plantations in Tanga Region. He later moved to Dar es Salaam, where an uncle helped him find work as the gardener of a British officer. There he first experimented with music and, in 1968, began to paint. He used recycled, inexpensive materials such as masonite panels, ceramic fragments and bicycle paint. His style was naïve, bordering on surrealism, and humorous.
Success and death
His paintings became popular among European residents and tourists, and he was able to work as an artist full time. In 1970 he married Agatha Mataka. He gathered a group of apprentices who would later organise themselves as the Tingatinga Art Co-operative Society. In 1972 he was accidentally shot by a policeman who mistook him for a fugitive, and he was buried in Msasani Cemetery.
Legacy
His followers and imitators spread the style across Tanzania, Kenya and much of East Africa, until it became the most characteristic tourist painting of the region. The school survived his death and grew in size and relevance, with exhibitions in Europe, Japan and China from the 1980s onward.