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GEORGE LILANGA
George Lilanga
George Lilanga (1934–2005) was a Tanzanian artist. He was of the Makonde tribe and lived in Dar es Salaam. His work was exhibited in international expositions of African contemporaries including Africa Remix in Düsseldorf, Paris, London and Tokyo.
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, Masasi district, in the Mtwara Region of southern Tanzania.
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 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. Lilanga was considered to have had an influence on the young American graffiti artists (Keith Haring 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 were represented two-dimensionally on Masonite 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 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, 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.
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