George Lilanga
Encyclopedia
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
n artist. He was of the Makonde tribe and lived in Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam
Dar es Salaam , formerly Mzizima, is the largest city in Tanzania. It is also the country's richest city and a regionally important economic centre. Dar es Salaam is actually an administrative province within Tanzania, and consists of three local government areas or administrative districts: ...
. His work was exhibited in international expositions of African contemporaries including Africa Remix in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
. When he died, the Hamburg Mawingu Collection (HMC) has presented in a work directory for the first time a systematically and thematically complete summary of Lilanga's work. In addition, the book explores the traditional roots of East Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
n Makonde art as well as four decades of Lilanga's artistic development with different materials and techniques including sculpture, paintings and etching.
Biography
The exact place and date of Lilanga's birth are unknown although he said that he was born in 1934 in the village of Kikwetu, MasasiMasasi
Masasi is one of the 5 districts of the Mtwara Region of Tanzania. It is bordered to the North by the Lindi Region, to the East by the Newala District, to the South by Mozambique and to the West by the Ruvuma Region....
district, in the Mtwara Region
Mtwara Region
Mtwara is a southern region of Tanzania which has been underdeveloped for a long time: development is constrained by the lack of highway and energy infrastructures. The Dar es Salaam-Kibiti-Lindi-Mtwara road has been improved by the completion of the Mkapa bridge over the Rufiji River...
of southern Tanzania.
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...
). His father was an agricultural laborer who worked on the sisal
Sisal
Sisal is an agave that yields a stiff fibre traditionally used in making twine, rope and also dartboards. The term may refer either to the plant or the fibre, depending on context...
plantations and he had two brothers who died before him. His father left the family and married another woman. George and his family later moved to the city of Lutamba, in southern Tanzania, on the border with Mozambique.
Here Lilanga went to grammar school for four. Lilanga, in the works of his last years of life, which were dedicated to village life, returned many times to the representation of the happy moments when grammar and secondary school students received their diplomas. Shortly afterwards, he had his first contact with sculpture (roots, softwood and, later, hard ebony), working in the Makonde tradition. He dedicated himself almost exclusively to this technique from 1961 until 1972. He showed his first works to Europeans who worked in the refugee camps during Mozambique’s war of independence. Following their advice, in 1970 Lilanga decided to move to Dar es Salaam, where there were greater opportunities for selling sculptures.
In 1971, George got his first job, thanks to his uncle, Augustino Malaba, an already well-known sculptor who would be his future collaborator. He worked as a night guard at the House of Art (Nyumba ya Sanaa), a typical African center for the development of art and craftsmanship. Lilanga’s talents were soon recognized by Jean Pruitt
Jean Pruitt
Jean Pruitt is an American Maryknoll Sister operating in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. She is best known for her activism in promoting Tanzanian art and defending Tanzanian children's rights...
. George Lilanga welcomed to Nyumba ya Sanaa to join other artists like Robino Ntila, Augustino Malaba and Patrick Francis Imanjama. He began to create batik
Batik
Batik is a cloth that traditionally uses a manual wax-resist dyeing technique. Batik or fabrics with the traditional batik patterns are found in Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, China, Azerbaijan, India, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and Singapore.Javanese traditional batik, especially from...
s, works on goatskin and on sheets of iron for the finishing of railings and gates.
Lilanga frequented the art circles of the Tingatinga
Tingatinga
Tingatinga is an administrative ward in the Monduli district of the Arusha Region of Tanzania. According to the 2002 census, the ward has a total population of 4,811....
school. Around 1972 he became essentially a painter. Some of his works were presented at Dar es Salaam's National Museum in 1974.
In 1974, he was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus
Diabetes mellitus
Diabetes mellitus, often simply referred to as diabetes, is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced...
. "I was always very tired, unable to follow my normal daily routine. Therefore, I decided to go in for a complete checkup in the local hospital. On that occasion, the doctors determined that I had diabetes."
In 1977, he made his first journey outside Africa, traveling to New York, where he had a show at the Marycoll Ossing Center. He stayed for a brief time in Manhattan, selling prints made on paper or cardboard, standing on street corners.
In 1978, he participated in a collective exhibition of African artists in Washington D.C. Of the 280 works presented, about 100 were by Lilanga. It was on this occasion that he was compared with Jean Dubuffet
Jean Dubuffet
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
. Lilanga was considered to have had an influence on the young American graffiti artists (Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
said in an interview that he had been influenced by Lilanga's art). Lilanga began a long series of exhibitions. His works had increasing success in Africa, Europe, the US, India and Japan.
In the 1980s, he dedicated himself almost exclusively to painting. His Shetani
Shetani
Shetani are spirits of East African mythology and popular belief. Mostly malevolent, and found in many different forms and different types with different powers, shetani are a popular subject of carved artwork, especially by the Makonde people of Kenya, Tanzania, and Mozambique...
were represented two-dimensionally on Masonite
Masonite
Masonite is a type of hardboard invented by William H. Mason.-History:Masonite was invented in 1924 in Laurel, Mississippi, by William H. Mason. Mass production started in 1929. In the 1930s and 1940s Masonite was used for many applications including doors, roofing, walls, desktops, and canoes...
and, later, on Faesite, the inexpensive panels made from wood fibre pressed and held together by a binding agent, frequently used in poor African dwellings for stopping up attic roofs and as insulation.
In the 1990s his works became increasingly larger (from this period are his oils on canvas about one square meter in size, his first large canvases over 200 centimeters in length and 61x122-centimeter works on Masonite/Faesite). During this period, after a break of many years, he began working intensely again with sculpture, creating a large number of works in soft wood (usually mninga or mkongo), vividly colored with oil-based enamels.
In the late 1990s, his diabetes worsened with severe complications. Lilanga was forced to reorganize his work, putting together an atelier
Studio
A studio is an artist's or worker's workroom, or the catchall term for an artist and his or her employees who work within that studio. This can be for the purpose of architecture, painting, pottery , sculpture, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, radio or television...
that included numerous young pupils and his own relatives who were also sculptors and painters. They were closely supervised by Lilanga, and began to take over part of the work that Lilanga could no longer easily do by himself.
In 2000, the combination of diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease led to a rapid deterioration in Lilanga's health. Due to gangrene
Gangrene
Gangrene is a serious and potentially life-threatening condition that arises when a considerable mass of body tissue dies . This may occur after an injury or infection, or in people suffering from any chronic health problem affecting blood circulation. The primary cause of gangrene is reduced blood...
, in October 2000 his right leg had to be amputated. In December of that year, the left leg was also amputated. Lilanga thus had to use a wheelchair; but after returning to his home in January 2001, he resumed his work.
In 2001, due to his serious physical impairments, he returned to small works with ink on paper and small goatskins 22.5 x 22.5 cm in size, which could be done more quickly and easily. With the assistance of his atelier, however, he also continued to create paintings of considerable size, and until shortly before his death, he produced large canvases, Masonites and tondos.
Lilanga died on Monday the 27 June 2005, in Dar es Salaam, in his house-atelier at Mbagala
Mbagala
Mbagala is an administrative ward in the Temeke district of the Dar es Salaam Region of Tanzania. According to the 2002 census, the ward has a total population of 70,290. It is also the site of an army base, which was hit by a deadly ammunition dump explosion on April 29, 2009.-References:...
.