Ives Art
Ives Art
Tingatinga forgeries are a problem today?
Today "Tingatinga" is the description of a trademark in Eastern Africa crafts. Hundreds of artists in Tanzania and Kenya each year thousands of paintings of tourism on the plates of plywood, cloth and other objects based on colors animals, village scenes, landscapes, Shetani and others. You Can buy small money works. Some attempts of recent years to sell paintings in the style of Tingatinga of the highest prices in the international art market does not.
If you change your point of view for the start of Tingatinga find a different situation. Around 1970, Eduardo Saidi Tingatinga created a new trend in art paintings on wooden boards of the second degree. It began with animal motifs on monochromatic backgrounds. More Later, the themes become more complex (eg party scenes), but always retain the naive expression. For his type of painting was no example of and lack of tradition in East Africa. It is wrong to say that the sketches of the cave or murals are the origin of painting Tingatinga. Tingatinga not a traditional style, but "invention" of one man with artistic power that he heard the voice of art "in difficult economic circumstances of their lives.
Unfortunately Tingatinga already died in 1972. Despite serious diligence and exceptional creativity who left a life of work only with a restricted number of pictures. Because these paintings marks the birth of a new trend of art that are coveted by collectors and higher prices are paid for originals. This market situation of art is the typical source for the forgeries. Tingatinga paintings are no exception. The reason is simple: for a talented painter, is easy to copy the grounds typical firm "ESTINGATINGA. Today we know that there have been forgeries of famous paintings all Tingatinga as "The Lion" " Peacock in the baobab "," Antelope "," Leopard "," Buffalo "," Monkey ", etc. As an example, is a secret that David Mzuguno in 2004 painted a long series of "real" paintings Tingatinga by signing the "original".
Shortly thereafter Goscinny Ives (an art dealer in Belgium) published in his book "Tingatinga – Popular Tanzania paints" a list of the supposedly true and false assumptions Tingatinga signatures. In reality, firms should not be distinguished. The list seems to be a joke. Probably only the signatures of the paintings were declared as "true", which were sold by Mr Goscinny directly or negotiation. It was reported that a collection of paintings were sold by Tingatinga high prices to the Swiss ambassador in Dar-es-Salaam in 2004. There was a rumor at this point that this business about counterfeit paintings also became a Mzuguno new owner of Switzerland.
In 2007, an obvious forgery "Peacock in the baobab tree" shown in the Rome exhibition "Africa Today" curated by Marco Faccenda Luca Parri of "National Gallery of Florence" who proclaimed themselves as experts in contemporary East African art. One can see this false picture in the exhibition catalog.
What is the situation now? All the paintings are truly authentic Tingatinga found in libraries. It is rare that these pictures achieve marked public art. Even today one can find copies of the grounds of age. But now most have firms as "DAUDI ESTINGATINGA (who painted the forgery of the exhibition in Rome and is the son of Edward Tingatinga) or" Agnes ". Counterfeit and "authentic"? It would be a miracle if there are also collectors and dealers who are looking for in the future and see how the grass is growing.
Ngoma4Dar
About the Author