Uganda’s modernism developed without linear progression. Throughout its trajectory, it has not exhibited any unified set of trends that can be described as persistent or consistent or sustained for longer than a decade. Uganda’s modernism is a product of experiments where influential agents, both foreign and local of varying backgrounds and intentions, created contexts within which they supported the type of art education and production they believed to be appropriate for their respective protégés and audiences. 

The character and content of the Uganda’s modernism, much of which can be traced to the indigenous arts, provides a clue to understanding and appreciating the way artists have interpreted and benefitted from their heritage. Until recently the writing of African Art History and anthropology has been dominated by scholars from the West. Typically, they have interpreted indigenous art as ethnographic objects without much artistic merit, while in other cases, such art represented tribal savagery. In both instances, such inheritance was to be disparaged and/or avoided as artistic referents. Today, it is possible to argue that indigenous art exemplified generations of wisdom and scientific advancement and therefore it was of immense benefit for the modern artists.

Indigenous art has always been adaptive and has constantly changed to serve the changing needs of society. The social changes however, that were witnessed at the turn of the 20th century, following the interventions by missionaries and colonisers in local life, were rather different and drastic. Nobert Kaggwa, a Makerere School of Fine Art student (1960-64) [FIG 02], summarized this engagement as follows: 

Here, Kaggwa expresses his excitement about the changes that impacted on local life from the West. He is, however, concerned that the rapid transformations were taking people by storm, while not allowing them enough time to digest and negotiate a steady and systematic progress for a national character to manifest. The shifts, unprecedented in scale, in local content in all sectors of life, were linked to the loss of political sovereignty of centuries of Ugandan self-rule to the British Crown. Both the colonial administration and Christian missionaries worked in partnership to chart a new social and political order. In this new ecosystem visual culture was subjected to rigorous scrutiny in the process, and finally subdued.

To understand and finally appreciate Uganda’s modern art, it is important to keep in mind the following three points:

1. The country is endowed with a rich cultural heritage. Inhabited by over 50 ethnic communities, each with its distinctive culture and language, Uganda is a home to a profusion of tangible and intangible cultural engagements.
2. It is a former British colony, whose conquest was not only political but also spiritual.
3. Uganda is an emerging economy. As such, it continues to be affected by neoliberal political and economic decisions made by developed countries, many of which negatively impact local content.

A combination of these factors has shaped the way Uganda’s modernism has been produced, displayed and consumed. The story of modern art in Uganda is therefore a story of engagement, dis-engagement and re-engagement.

Makerere Art School in Uganda [FIG 03] is credited to be the cradle of modern art in East Africa, (here East Africa is defined as Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania). Although there are modern art practices that have their roots in local traditions, such as the Makonde of Tanzania, it is Makerere Art School with its durable formal art education system that has, over eight decades, had a lasting impact and widespread influence in the region. Since its inception, its teaching and research programs with a focus on African consciousness have attracted scholars from the region and beyond. 

The choice of Uganda to be the centre for higher education in the region was influenced by a number of factors. The presence of stable and coherent indigenous administrative structures was the main one. In contrast to Kenya and to some extent Tanzania, Uganda possessed centuries old monarchies. Insulated between the eastern and western great rift valleys and Lake Victoria to the south, advanced societies evolved [FIG 04]. Within their frameworks enduring cultures thrived long before the slave marauders as well as the European explorers and geographers arrived on the continent. In search of slaves and ivory, Arab traders trekked into the interior of East Africa earlier than the European explorers. They arrived at the court of King (Kabaka) Suuna in 1844 and were astounded by the level of civilization of the communities. Two decades on, John Hannington Speke and James Grant, British explorers (1862) arrived and their mission was to find the source of the mighty Nile. Henry Morton Stanley followed in 1875. With the approval of King Muteesa [FIG 05], Kabaka Suuna’s successor, Stanley wrote a letter to Queen Victoria of England inviting missionaries to his kingdom. Two years later, the first party of missionaries of the Church Missionary Society headed by Alexander Mackay arrived, followed by the French Catholic Missionaries headed by Father M. Lourdel in 1879. By the time colonialism set its foot in Africa, following the 1884 Berlin conference, evangelization had already taken roots in the heart of Africa. The elaborate administrative structures of local kingdoms, that impressed the Arabs, were ironically exploited by the missionaries and the British colonial administrators, who colonized the country, applying the system of divide and rule. The signing of the 1900 Buganda agreement marked the beginning of formal colonial occupation in the interior of East Africa.

European evangelization was accompanied by programs, which stressed the need for a formal education as a pre-requisite. Missionaries established schools, first in Buganda, later spreading to the rest of the country where they taught reading, writing and arithmetic. Skills in numeracy and literacy boosted the modernization process, which, in Uganda, started earlier than the rest of East Africa. Founded and managed by missionaries, education centers progressed from so-called bush schools to normal schools. These schools however lacked a harmonized curriculum, which was a recipe for disordered development. The colonial government intervened by creating Makerere Technical School in 1922 [FIG 06].

European evangelization was accompanied by programs, which stressed the need for a formal education as a pre-requisite. Missionaries established schools, first in Buganda, later spreading to the rest of the country where they taught reading, writing and arithmetic. Skills in numeracy and literacy boosted the modernization process, which, in Uganda, started earlier than the rest of East Africa. Founded and managed by missionaries, education centers progressed from so-called bush schools to normal schools. These schools however lacked a harmonized curriculum, which was a recipe for disordered development. The colonial government intervened by creating Makerere Technical School in 1922 [FIG 06]. Makerere not only raised the bar of education standards in the Protectorate, but also took on board vocational courses such as agriculture, that were essential for economic advancement. Such courses had been neglected in Missionary Schools. In all these engagements, art was consigned to the margins. Teaching of art in schools would imply paying tribute to endogenous cultures which missionaries suspected to facilitate demonic worship.  Indeed at Budo, one of the leading schools in Uganda at the time, the headmaster H. T. C. Weatherhead remarked in 1914 that “Fancy subjects such as singing, art etc… which might be called excruciating,….find no place here”

Given that art in East Africa had always been an integral part of community life, including religion, its promotion as a cultural reflection would be tantamount to undermining and contradicting the project of evangelisation, especially at its embryonic stages.

Art education was however not altogether absent in missionary schools. Some technical drawing was taught in boys’ schools such as Kisubi, where carpentry was offered, while knitting and crocheting was available at Gayaza girls’ school. These skills ensured production of technically sound applied arts such as furniture and the new brick architecture introduced by Europeans.

But not all missionary teachers were sympathetic to Weatherhead’s uncomplimentary position towards development of local arts. Venerable Archdeacon Mathers of the Church Missionary Society had a different opinion. A leading education personality, Ven. Mathers did not share the belief in the potential for material culture to be insidious and disruptive to evangelization. Local cultures could instead be complementary to missionary work and also contribute to social welfare. To this end, he initiated a project of district bazaars, and from time to time, he (perhaps with a few helpers), promoted the production of and organized handiwork exhibitions of school children, where articles were sold. With this project, Ven. Mathers sought to keep visual art with roots in the local tradition alive. He linked the present with the past, maintaining that “cheap imported goods need not kill handcrafted work”

Spanning over two decades, his first exhibition was held in Iganga 1917, later, there was one in Kako 1919 and several others thereafter. The Mbale exhibition in 1939, which included artisans who were out of school but living off art, was opened by Sir Philip Mitchell, the governor of Uganda. By this time, the colonial government had become keenly aware of the role culture could play in economic and social development. It was also aware of the emerging citizenry discontent over shrinking civil and political space, which later in the 1950s prepared the ground for struggle for self- determination. Riots erupted from time to time in particular over unfair trade practices imposed by the colonial government and a skewed education system where local content was subdued. Support for culture in an environment, where monarchies were still revered cultural institutions, seemed like a good way of engaging with the disgruntled public to reduce tensions and hostility. Little wonder then, that in 1935, the colonial government authorized the posting of the first art teacher Ms. Geraldine Fisher at Gayaza Girls School.  

Beyond recovering past traditions in the context of modern developments Ven. Mathers’ experiments ensured a space neutral enough for [his] Christian artisans and consumers of the artifacts to practice their Christian faith. This also introduced a monetary value to handicrafts, which reinforced the idea that art and crafts could be both commodities and objects of cultural significance. Ven. Mathers was not an artist, but an art enthusiast, whose passion for local cultures played a role in preparing the ground for an African modernism to emerge through formal art education. We do not have records of the work Ven. Mathers’ students and other artists produced. One can only speculate that it was a mixture of art and crafts. As it was then, it is still now that the divide between Art and Crafts continues to be an unsettled question. Scholars of visual culture have tended to place crafts beneath fine art. Mrs. Margaret Trowell, the founder of Makerere Art School in 1940 [FIG 07], argued “The problem is that this distinction between figurative art and craft is false. It is false because if one looks closely only at figurative art (fine art) and crafts; these two areas stem from the same roots which is man’s desire to create things of beauty as well as his need to use his products in the service of the community. Although these intangible urges are more obvious in figurative arts they also exist in crafts”

Trowell’s interpretation of art and crafts is open to being challenged, but, it is nonetheless useful in so far as it keeps our thoughts and reflections on traditions inherited from the past as important resources for a modern artist. Trowell also hints at the possibility that long before she and Ms. Fisher started teaching art in Uganda, some form of African modernism was active. Scholars in Art History, however, seem to agree on a common definition that modernism sets out to break with the existing traditions and establishes new practices. In Uganda this involves including aspects of traditional art forms or references to traditions in new media. This definition is consistent with the story of Makerere’s early years. 

When Trowell started her experimental art classes at Mulago in 1937, she introduced a new language of ‘easel painting’ where art was created primarily for aesthetic and intellectual purpose and judged for its beauty and meaningfulness. Hospital nurses, teachers and anyone who cared, constituted Trowell’s first informal art classes students on her porch at Mulago. A year later, an exhibition that combined her students’ work and that of Geraldine Fisher’s Gayaza students was opened at Nnamirembe Synod Hall, in the outskirts of Kampala. Governor Mitchell, was impressed with duo’s initiative and provided the needed support that enabled a version of this ground breaking debut exhibition, together with a selection of local material culture, to be shown at the Imperial Institute, South Kensington, in London. The strategist at the center of the new art movement, Mrs. Margaret Trowell, was a wife of an English surgeon, Dr. Hugh Trowell. An energetic and accomplished painter herself, Mrs Trowell valued material culture as an important referent for her vision of an African Modernism. 

The Nnamirembe exhibition sparked much enthusiasm for the new medium of painting. In the months that followed, an art society was formed where members peer reviewed each other’s work and exhibitions became a yearly event. We also note an emergence of critical writings on art by Miss K. K. Kimura, a British English teacher at Gayaza, who arrived together with Fisher. These activities as well as the Nnamirembe and London exhibitions proved to be very important in arousing public and government interest in art and its contribution to the enrichment of local cultures (Kyeyune 2003).Upon her arrival in Uganda in 1935, she toured the country studying and collecting local artifacts. She accepted a honorary position as curator of Uganda Museum [FIG 08], “an unclassified junk shop” in a small Doric building, established by governor Sir Hesketh Bell in 1907, at old Kampala hill. She archived the museum collection and later in 1941 moved it to a Makerere College building that had become vacant. With the museum adjacent to the embryonic art school, Trowell created conditions for the needed symbiotic relationship between the two institutions.

Fisher returned to England before the beginning of World War II, leaving behind Mrs. Trowell, who proceeded to build a major formal art education structure. The successful exhibitions both home and abroad were enough to convince Mr. Turner, the principal of Makerere College, as it was called then, to grant her permission to integrate art in the fledgling Makerere College curriculum. This was a significant milestone, as not everyone among the Makerere College authorities believed that the discipline of art qualified to be part of an academic institution. For example, in the arrangement that aimed at upgrading Makerere College diplomas to degrees validated by a London University in 1949, it was suggested that art relocates to Kyambogo Technical School to be among the carpenters. “History of Art could fit in the academic realm but not so the actual practice of art,” according to one local authority (possibly a member of College Council). Infuriated and despondent, Trowell quoted the Commission for Higher Education in the Colonies report, 1945, which had stated inter-alia: “Universities have a double purpose of refining and maintaining all the best in local traditions and cultures and at the same time providing a means whereby those brought up under the influence of these traditions and cultures may enter on a footing into the world wide community of intellect”.

Trowell prevailed and the Department of Fine Art survived and continued to grow. Under her supervision and guidance she designed a curriculum that sought to restore pride to her students, the achievements of their ancestors. The isolated and intermittent activities of Ven. Mathers could now be regularized. Trowell’s project of putting together an ‘African’ Art School in the heart of Africa was not without complications. She was an outsider herself with limited exposure to the nuances of African value systems. Furthermore the region of her focus, did not have a strong tradition of figurative art and instead, pottery, basketry and myths and legends abounded. The early anthropologists and scholars of African art, had judged wood carvings and bronze casts of West Africa and Congo, to be the hallmark and index of African creativity, and since these were generally not common in East Africa, it was doubted that a serious African modernism could be inspired here. This unfortunate stereotyping was ironically good news for Trowell. She saw her students as blank slates and as such, she took the liberty to propose a curriculum that was unburdened by the weight of a ‘strong figurative art tradition’. She also insisted on sheltering her students from Western masters claiming that, Western art would bias their creativity and contaminate their original thought.

Around this time, similar experiments were going on in other parts of colonial Africa. In 1951, Pierre Lods, a French amateur painter and art patron, founded the “African Art Workshop” [FIG 09], which was named the Poto Poto Art School. Like Trowell, Lods’ objective in founding the Poto Poto art school, was to support a pure Congolese artistic creation free from any relation to Western art supposed to distort the essence of African soul (Tobenna: 97). In a figurative art vacuum, Trowell encouraged her students to find content from their rural life. Rural life could be expanded to represent knowledge and respect for technological and cultural achievements of earlier generations. Against the background of high regard and respect for their heritage and identity, students painted and made sculptures that exhibited drama and content, which meant much in African life. Subjects like the storm, a bush fire, famine, arson etc… would be painted in a way that showed the artist had fully entered the mood of their subject (Trowell 1960a, 114).A tradition of woodcarving existed among the Akamba community of the neighboring Kenya [FIG 10]. Trowell hired an Akamba carver who exposed her students to some rudiments of woodcarving.  In her judgment, the middle ages were the most appropriate and relevant of the great periods in Western art that should inspire her students. This was a popular British creative concept, which leans on the Victorian art criticism of John Ruskin.She wrote : “In the Middle Ages in Europe, all the craft of the artist and the musician, all the color and wealth of drama were in honor of the Creator; they were used both to express the highest in man, and to teach the humble illiterate people whose book had perforce to be drama and stone”

The low literacy and numeracy in the middle ages connected well with the marginal education that was prevalent in Uganda during the colonial period. The African aesthetic, as had been neglected hitherto, Trowell believed, would filter back into communities and contribute to their economic and spiritual development. 

Trowell was not a mainstream evangelist. As a Christian however, she was duty-bound to participate in spreading the Gospel – in her case, through art making and art education.  At Murang’a Church in Eastern Kenya, Elimo Njau, one of her most prominent student, visualized biblical stories from an African perspective. Njau painted the Stations of the Cross, where the figures are placed within environment reminiscent of an African rural setting. In this project, Njau invites us to reflect on the complex duality of an African Christian. If indeed Jesus represents salvation for the world, his followers anywhere he presides on planet earth, would have the liberty to engage him as a member of their own community. In Njau’s Nativity [FIG 11], Jesus is born in an African hut, set within an African landscape and his parents are dressed as Africans. The Murang’a Church is a monument that was constructed as a tribute the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the 1950s and as such, a perfect space for hosting statements that introduce African perspectives in the spirit of pan-Africanism.

Besides Njau, there were several other artists who explored biblical subjects. The Burial of Christ [FIG 12], a group sculpture by Rose Mary Namuli is a depiction of a segment of a traditional Ganda burial ceremony. Wrapped in bark cloth, a highly respected material artifact in Buganda, the body of Christ is engulfed by wailers who, by hoisting it on their shoulders rather than carrying it with ropes, a few inches above the ground, show their level affection for the deceased even in death. Charles Ssekintu picked up the Desecration of the Church [FIG 13] as a subject. Jesus is holding a chair high up and charging at the transgressors who had turned the temple of God into a market place.

Sam Ntiro can be described as Trowell’s faithful disciple. He joined the Makerere Art School in 1948, later becoming one of the teaching staff. His teacher and later his colleague, Gregory Maloba, described him as a naïve painter and his naiveté was not to be interfered with, otherwise, his art would be shattered instead of improving. On this point, Maloba had the support of Mr. Willings, a Manchester College of Art graduate, whom Trowell had recruited to stand in for Ntiro when the artist was on study break in London. But Ntiro’s “intuitive art” projected the freshness and vigor that Trowell was determined to foster among her students. Ntiro’s style fitted the idea of an African essence that Trowell hoped to protect and advance. But Maloba argued that this was not appropriate at the time when the School was still faced with the question of legitimacy as an academic discipline in Makerere College.

Ntiro’s woes as a disparaged artist notwithstanding, he proved to be a prolific muralist, who distinguished himself as the first East African to hold a one man show in London (1955). 

Kojo Fosu describes Ntiro’s figures as impressions of a series of pods from which young germinating seedlings emerge. Ntiro himself interprets them as, “representing new life and joy of harvest, resulting from hard and honest labor” (Fosu, 1986, 33). Produced during the time of independence struggle, one can read Ntiro’s germinating pods as metaphors for acknowledging and re-engaging with the past to create new visual sensibilities. His dominant subject matter was his rural Chagga life in Tanzania, which he painted in fresh and delightful colors. Ntiro’s paintings exhibit an intensity of his feelings and evoke a sense of deep engagement and respect for his cultural traditions.

An incisive critic and contemporary of Ntiro, Gregory Maloba maintained beliefs that run counter to Trowell’s value system. For him, observation drawing and anatomy and knowledge of the wider world were essential components that modern African artist ought to be in their grasp. He considered these academic enough to insert the School firmly into a university system and for it to earn respect among the Makerere academics. Maloba was aware of the battles Trowell fought to get art instituted within the Makerere college system, because he evolved with the School from its inception in 1940, until his migration to Nairobi University in 1966, where, together with his former student Louis Mwaniki [FIG 17], he started the art department. The brief encounter with the Mukamba wood carver exposed him to the techniques of carving. Death was his first piece in wood [see FIG 16]. 

Stealthily looking through Trowell’s library collection, he found Jacob Epstein, a Jewish-American sculptor from London, who captured his imagination. It was Trowell’s desire to cultivate a sense of selfhood by sheltering her students from Western masters.  Inspired by Jacob Epstein style, exhibits a sense of emotion and energy. An impassive gigantic monstrous figure squeezing life out of a feeble helpless mortal is truly poignant.  

Modeling rather than carving gave Maloba the unrestricted freedom to reveal himself as a formidable sculptor. Interpretation of nature through observation and proficiency in modeling is on display in the Ham Mukasa clay portrait [FIG 18]. Here, his skillful handling of clay allows him to reveal the hard bony surfaces in contrast to the fleshy areas. If Ham Mukasa succeeded as an academic inquiry, the Uganda Independence monument from 1962 [FIG 19], Maloba’s largest and best-known piece, combined both formal analysis and synthesis of African sensibilities. A child, hands open and raised, is hoisted by their mother with legs astride, which creates the monument’s stability. While the portraits in Independence Monument are naturalistic, the stretching and broadening of the lower part are reminiscent of the schematized proportions that characterize African sculpture. Reference to traditional African art in Maloba’s Independence Monument was unavoidable during the run up to and throughout the independence decade.

Debates about returning to the past in the search for an African identity in a modern independent nation state dominated the development the academic and agendas. Both Maloba and Jonathan Kingdon gave their students a balanced curriculum in which both the African consciousness and the studio academic inquiry were addressed. A son of British colonial officer, Kingdon was born and raised in Tanzania and this foundation allowed him to appreciate the African challenges and possibilities. He pursued his studies in art at Ruskin Art College UK as well as the Royal College of Art and upon completion, became a member of staff at the Makerere Art School in 1959.  Kingdon wrote:

In 1958 Trowell’s successor Cecil Todd was appointed by the Inter-University Council for Overseas Higher Education. Todd did not entirely disagree with both Maloba and Kingdon’s interpretation of culturally conscious Uganda’s modernism. However, he preferred to explicitly anchor the School in an academic realm. A painter from Scotland and a graduate of Royal College of Art London, Todd had a teaching stint at Rhodes University, South Africa before joining the Makerere Art School as a professor of Fine Art. His exposure to Apartheid could have enhanced his desire to distance himself from indigenous arts. Todd did not dismiss the merit of the African art of the past. For him, its value, however, did not lie in its capacity as building blocks for the development of an African modernism. Rather, they were to be taken as visible evidence of a creative endowment to be recognized with admiration as an impressive cultural past.

Todd’s best-known work in Uganda is a mural Exchange and Barter [FIG 20]. In this work Todd was unambiguous in the way he considered and incorporated artifacts of the past in his design. Exchange and Barter is public art project in mosaic and terrazzo on Bank of Africa in the center of Kampala. It is a composition based on currencies in current use and those that have been used throughout history in many parts of the world. Todd’s exploration of these motifs is simple and direct. He breaks them down to their basic shapes and exploits their decorative value by arranging them in contrasting colors. The perfection of line, the balanced color arrangement as well as the proportion of motifs in relation to the overall appearance of the design illustrates the high level of draftsmanship, which Todd injected into Makerere courses. Todd’s contribution to the School, therefore, was manifested in the academic atmosphere he encouraged, through paying great attention to observation, drawing and the technical handling of materials as well as the culture of reading and studying.

The Independence decade produced artists who benefitted from the two pedagogically divergent views of Margaret Trowell and Cecil Todd. Artists kept one foot in East African social life as they examined their own lives and discovered their personal and collective identities.  Within the scope of Pan-Africanism Kefa Ssempangi made art that resisted academic art, fostering a personal signature that overtly drew from local cultures. His sculpture Omugerengejjo (The Witch) [FIG 21] is reminiscent of the ancestral shrine where professed Christians and Muslims continue to flock. Ugandan believers are trapped in a conflict between the modern and traditional worlds, a duality that many artists are part of and continue to interrogate.  Omugerengejjo is a mixed media sculpture in cement and objects of divination, such as smoking pipe, animal horns, phallic tokens, cowries, steel dancing bells and real things Ssempangi collected from the people he knew. Some of these objects are commonplace paraphernalia for a local diviner.  Because these are ‘sacred’, they play an important part in both modern and traditional life in Uganda. Divided in two parts, the object on top rides upon a buffalo, which happens to be the abode of Mayembe (malevolent) spiritual power (Kyeyune: 2003).

Under the same scheme of conception and production, Muhammad Kamulegeya capitalized on studying color relationships. An experimental artist, he tested the limits of design capabilities. The distinct colorful patterns in his mural I Will Keep You Safe are studies taken from particular surface decorations of traditional musical instruments, architecture and war weaponry such as shields, spears etc. The freely hand-drawn patterns, invest the painting with energy and vitality. 

In contrast to Kamulegeya and Ssempangi, Theresa Musoke explored anatomy within the margins of her dream world. She was not interested in questions of cultural identity that preoccupied many of her contemporaries [FIG 22]. For Musoke the exploration of formal content was the strongest drive. Her paintings and woodcuts celebrate East Africa’s fauna and flora, in some cases reduced to patterns [FIG 23]. Francis Nnaggenda had his African encounter in Germany where he graduated in sculpture. Sidney Kasfir (1969) refers to Nnaggenda as an experimental artist who reclaims scrap (metal, plastic, glass, wood etc.) and reconfigures it into meditative objects. In his work, his affinity for mask forms is palpable. Masks, as we noted earlier, were scarce in his cultural past and were rarely referenced by the Makerere bound artists. Todd played a role in demonizing the mythicism of the past, especially cosmologies which had been subdued in East Africa. 

as Kasumba would put it. Kasumba contends that, as Africans are genetically related, that, cultural traits or characters are genetically transferable” (Kasumba, interview 2001). In Spirit Within Man [FIG 24], Nnaggenda is talking about the tensions of being an African artist submerged in modern developments. After his graduation in 1967 in Germany, Nnaggenda taught art in secondary schools during President Idi Amin’s despotic regime. He returned home to a teaching job at Makerere in 1978, at the height of the war that deposed Idi Amin. Amin’s economic mismanagement led to scarcity of imported art materials and Nnaggenda’s studio experiments contributed to the School’s survival in 70s and the years that followed. He carved wood with fabricated chisels, improvised with sap as wood protective agent and painted with coffee and mixtures from organic matter. Scarcity of imported art materials ironically helped artists like Nnaggenda to return to indigenous knowledge and also to experiment with non-traditional materials. A graduate degree in Crafts using locally available material was even suggested. Due to logistical issues, the pioneer Crafts student, George Sizoomu, was however not able to complete.

Operating within the margins of ‘crafts’, the production of Batik Art, the artform previously despised as ‘kitsch’, picked up speed and gathered momentum in the 70s and 80s. It proved to be a convenient and popular medium, because cotton, dyes and wax, the key ingredients for its production were cheap and readily available in the country. Further it could be produced in large amounts, thereby improving its marketability. In spite of the economic strain Uganda was experiencing in the 1970s and 80s, Batik art remained affordable and therefore saturated the market widely at home and beyond. The premium placed on Batik Art in the 70s and 80s also benefitted the reception of water color painting after political stability returned, following the end of civil war in 1986. The batik art technique of ‘resist’ expanded into tie and dye which boosted small scale textile industries[FIG 25].

During his regime Idi Amin valued art only in so far as it helped to boost his ego. He commissioned the School whenever he wanted insignia and medals for his military apparatus. During the Organisation of African Unity summit held in Kampala in 1975, Makerere students and staff produced art that graced the strategic venues. With such support, the school was able to build a stock of materials that helped to sustain teaching. Amin’s brutality however remained a serious concern to Ugandans and artists produced images that responded to his atrocities. 

In the painting March Past Parade [FIG 26] Driciru is commenting on the symbols of power and authority. Amin craved power, which he maintained by the barrel of the gun. With little formal education himself, Amin had a marked phobia of intellectuals, whom he suspected of undermining his authority. This phobia is evidently expressed in March Past Parade, where Amin is presented standing on the plinth, as he nervously watches over the march past.

Broken Eggs is another painting that conveys the tensions of the 70s. The artist, Josephine Alacu returns to the Bible with a story of Genesis translated to fit local life and to match the conditions of the time. In the painting, are multiple metaphors to express the torment Ugandans suffered at the hands of Amin’s soldiers [FIG 27]. The same effect is seen in Alacu’s Mother’s Nightmare [FIG 28] with its frightening image of an evil regime gobbling up its own children. The legend provides another nightmarish vision of mutilation, decay and corruption; and yet off-centre an illuminated cross hangs from a rosary while a group of people kneel in prayer. Perhaps redemption was possible.

Peace and stability did not return after Amin’s overthrow in 1999. The contested elections that returned Milton Obote to power (1981-86) led to a civil war in a region no further than 20 miles north of Kampala. War Victim summarizes the purging of lives and the trauma of the people caught up in armed conflict [FIG 29]. War Victim is a robust amputated, mutilated body standing on one leg forcefully created; a sculpture infused with deep spirituality. The left hand is missing, while the right one’s fleshy remains both hang and fuse on the upper part of the torso. Its dark brown tint not only amplifies its sculptural qualities and a sense of vigor but also makes a direct reference to African peoples. Fixed to the ground at its narrowest point, tension is mounted as the sculpture shoots in the air. From this single spot of tension, it swings back to the right against the principally left inclination. 

Towards the end of civil war, Mathias Muwonge produced one of the dramatic paintings of the time, entitled Misfortune [FIG 30]. This work criticizes, protests and challenges the vicious regime. Muwonge uses symbols from his culture to express anguish and devastation. A woman is disemboweled of a stillbirth. She is towed away into the abyss by a monstrous skeleton, where resignation and bloodletting is on display. With precision, the sharp jaws of the termites in the center of the painting savage through succulent flesh, adding to the horror of the wreckage. Misfortune is an embodiment of pain and despair.

Besides the political strife, Ugandans were engulfed in a scourge of HIV/AIDS, especially during the 80s, and not as passive spectators.  In her painting Woman of Burden produced in 1990 [FIG 31], Rebecca Bisaso addresses the connected issues of war, disease and conflict. In this painting Bisaso specifically reflects on the medical and social problems of HIV/AIDS that has plagued the country for over two decades. In Uganda, heterosexual encounters are the major routes through which it spreads and women are at a greater risk. The mating of birds here represents promiscuity. The oxygenated red of the voluptuous body of the prostitute that dominates the painting magnifies her irresistible charm, sensuousness and desirability to men who both infect her and become infected thereby. On her branchy hair sits the mythical owl, foretelling imminent catastrophe.

Uganda went through radical transformation after the civil war in 1986. A semblance of peace and economic stability, followed and this rendered the morbid subjects that characterized the 70s and early 80s irrelevant. Two major administrative features, namely liberalization of the economy and restoration of monarchies, introduced in the new Yoweri Museveni government, had a far-reaching impact on all sectors of life. Threatened by closure because government judged it to be conservative and detached from the ordinary people, the Margaret Trowell School of Fine art reinvented itself. New courses that had a direct practical impact on the general population were introduced. These included fashion, jewelry, stained glass, wood and metal fabrication, weaving and business administration. A major increase in number of students in 1995 is attributable to the diversification of courses. Indeed these changes facilitated the upgrading of the school to a faculty status with the Margaret Trowell School of Industrial and Fine Arts, as its new name. In 1995, monarchies were restored enabling artists to re-engage with traditions inherited from the past once again, but this time with a greater appreciation of indigenous knowledge that they consulted and applied during the time of scarcities (70s and 80s). 

The political upheavals in the early years after independence in 1962 resulted in abolition of centuries old kingdoms. Under president Obote, Uganda abandoned the federal system of governance to become a republic. In 1966, the Kabaka of Buganda Freddie Muteesa, who had assumed the position of titular president, was forced out of his palace. He fled to London, where he lived in exile until his death in 1969. Continuing the debate on reconnecting with past traditions, Rose Kirumira interpreted local musical instruments and made church furniture at Kamuli in Busoga [FIGs 33 and 34].Rose’s contemporary Bruno Serunkuuma, investigated local clay bodies and re-assessed the traditional pot. He detached it from household and every day usage and made it a new medium for modern artist, releasing it from constraints of domestic space. Bruno also paints social and cultural subjects taken from rural and urban settings on its surface, using the clay bodies he has developed in his studio [FIGs 35 and 36]. After the civil war, several artists returned from exile, bringing the much-needed fresh air into the system. They had been exposed to new languages and possibilities in art, which they shared with homebound artists. Geoffrey Mukasa returned from Lucknow India after his BA in painting (1989) where he was exposed to the Indian revivalism movement, which bears resemblance to the Natural Synthesis of the Zaria Rebels in Nigeria. Mukasa was also influenced by Maqbool Fida Husain, a well-known Indian painter who was renowned for his visceral dismembering of the figure [FIG 37].

Gazing Back by Sanaa Gateeja on the other hand makes products from bark cloth and other natural materials. He employs local women to create paper beads which he transforms into high art by composing it into wearable art, wall hangings etc. Beads are applied as raw materials where their tactile quality is utilized to enhance experimentation. A rich tapestry of figurative and abstract compositions emerges, deepening our imagination and sense of being. Experimentation with local materials took a center stage. Formal content was explored. Pilkington Ssengendo re-assessed the bark cloth. He weaved it, painted on it, and incorporated physical objects such as seeds, paper and glass beads. Ssengendo was not only continuing the debate on art of cultural consciousness but he also worked on the scheme of celebrating the return of monarchies, since they were outlawed in 1966, for example in his painting King and Queen [FIG 32]. According to his own claim, he missed the chance to indulge life as an art student due to his activism.

Modernism in Uganda has been driven as much by foreign independently thinking personalities, who influenced colonial art education such as Rev. Mathers, Mrs. Trowell, Cecil Todd, as it has more recently by the engaged Ugandan artist Francis Nnaggenda for example. Their respective ideas and beliefs have opened creative spaces where different shades of opinion – practical and verbal — have emerged. Working in shifting political, social and cultural environments, artists in Uganda created images that have addressed issues of their time.