African Artists under Mission Patronage

Focus on Tanzania

Fadhili Safieli Mshana

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2023
• eBook ISBN: 9781978789081
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: History of Art
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The development, promotion, and status of African art and African artists in twentieth-century Africa is linked to several stakeholders and agencies, including Western Christian missions. Fadhili Safieli Mshana, in African Artists under Mission Patronage, surveys how mission patronage of African artists influenced twentieth-century African art, presenting specific case studies of Oye-Ekiti Workshop (Nigeria), Cyrene and Serima missions (Zimbabwe), Grace Dieu and Rorke's Drift missions (Republic of South Africa), Kungoni Center of Culture and Art (Malawi), and Nyumba ya Sanaa/NYS or "House of Art," Bujora Mission, the Hernnhut Brethren of Urambo Mission, the Benedictine Abbey Ndanda, and Maneromango Lutheran Mission (Tanzania). Mshana considers the philosophies and policies of these missions, their approaches in training artists, the processes of knowledge exchange surrounding art-making and attitudes toward art, the role of visual traditions, the use of art objects, the status of artists, and the socio-economic climate of the cultures hosting the missions. He concludes that the artists and the missions that supported them made significant contributions to the history of contemporary African art.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• An Overview of Western Christian Missionary Art Patronage in Africa
• Sister Jean Pruitt and Nyumba ya Sanaa (NYS)
• Father David Clement and Bujora Church in Tanzania
• Art Patronage Lessons from Abbey Ndanda and Maneromango Mission
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author