George Lilanga

The exact place and date of Lilanga's birth are uncertain, although he said that he was born in 1934 in the village of Kikwetu, Masasi district, in the Mtwara Region of southern Tanzania.

[3] In the works of his latter years, which were dedicated to village life, he returned many times to representation of his memories of happy moments, when school students received their diplomas.

In 1970, Lilanga decided to move to Dar es Salaam, where there were greater opportunities for selling sculptures and practising contemporary art.

Lilanga's talents were recognized by Maryknoll Sister Jean Pruitt, an American aid worker promoting Tanzanian art.

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.

Shortly after beginning grammar school, Lilanga had his first contact with wooden sculpture, made from roots, softwood and, later, ebony, and working in the Makonde tradition.

His many pictures showing Shetani in different situations were represented two-dimensionally on Masonite (inexpensive panels made from wood fibre pressed, frequently used in African dwellings for stopping up attic roofs and as insulation), or on canvas, batiks and goat skin.

[2] In the 1990s and with growing international recognition, his paintings became increasingly larger (from this period are his oils on canvas about one square meter in size, his first large canvases over 200 centimetres in length and 61x122-centimeter works on Masonite/Faesite).

During this period, after a break of many years, and at the end of the 1990s, he began working intensely again with sculpture, creating a large number of carvings in soft wood (usually mninga or mkongo), vividly coloured with oil-based enamels.

The bright enamel multi-colour painting technique pioneered by Lilanga gives his pieces a more contemporary aesthetic appeal and developed into a personal style that has made them popular with collectors and art dealers.

As a result, Lilanga became a reference in African art and enjoyed considerable commercial success in the latter part of his life, and prices for his pieces were further boosted after his death in 2005.

In addition, the book explores the traditional roots of East African Makonde art, as well as four decades of Lilanga's artistic development with different materials and techniques, including sculpture, paintings, etchings, drawings and metal works.

Currently the HMC publish the George Lilanga News as an online blog with information about the artist, his art works, exhibitions and other interesting background material.