This astonishing masterpiece of East African art has been returned to the region from the United States.

The painting of a woman, her gown falling open to reveal her breasts in the manner of a Classical goddess, was made in 1970 by an influential painter and sculptor whose contribution to the mainstream of the region’s artistic development has been largely forgotten.

Painted with a palette knife in acrylic paint — then an almost revolutionary medium with its quick drying and water-based properties — it is by Eli Kyeyune, an alumni of the Margaret Trowell School at Makerere in Kampala.

If his countryman Jak Katarikawe is hailed as the African Chagall, surely Kyeyune must be the African Matisse. His certainty of line and ability to describe volume and the weight of flesh with a few confident passes put him among the continent’s masters.

Kyeyune exploited the flexibility of acrylics and unlike many of his portrait oils that were traditionally tonal, this picture has a more dynamic graphic quality coupled with an informed spatial awareness that sets it apart.

The driving energy that marks the picture with its succulent slabs of pure paint is enhanced by its bold colouring — the yellow gown against a confidently knifed blue and green background — underpinned by the certainty of its structure and the forceful pose.

Four perfectly placed heavy black lines delineate the heft of the model’s generous breasts, echoing the folds of her fallen gown. They define and support the composition with economy and elan. Note too how the height of the neck has been exaggerated to carry the poised head with its imperious stare.

It is high time Kyeyune’s abilities were recognised and his name restored to the roll call of the region’s finest artists. Born in 1936, he went to Makerere from 1959 to 1962 but left without a diploma, having rebelled, somewhat ironically given his style, against the Eurocentric teaching that included art history, introduced by new head Cecil Todd following the retirement of the founding principal Margaret Trowell.

In spite of the international reach of his work, Kyeyune believed art should remain rooted in the local community as a vehicle for social change.

He remained an enthusiastic member of the regional arts scene, specialising in portraiture and becoming treasurer of the Community of East African Artists in 1964, joining the like-minded Kenyan pioneer Elimo Njau at the Chemi Chemi Cultural Centre in Nairobi one year later.

His rejection of formal Western-style teaching put him at odds with the Ugandan art establishment but his abilities could not be wished away and he was offered a job lecturing in painting and sculpture at the Design Centre Institute of Teachers Education at Kyambogo, in Kampala, from 1995-98. He died aged 64 in the year 2000.

This painting, called simply Girl 1970, painted on board and measuring 60cm by 40cm, belonged to an American collector who bought it in Kampala. It has now been sent back to the region for sale in the second auction to be organised by the Circle Art Agency, scheduled for November 3 at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel in Nairobi.

It is offered with a guide price of Ksh250,00-Ksh300,000 ($2,840- $3,410) and although it is not the dearest piece on offer (that doubtful honour goes to a Gakunju Kaigwa sculpture of a woman in Vermont marble with an estimate of Ksh1,500,000 or $17,000) it is for sure one of the highlights of the auction.

There is another painting by Kyeyune in the sale, a malerisch oil head of a woman called Portrait 1975. More traditional in approach and typical of Kyeyune’s mainstream style, at some stage in its life it was smothered in a yellowing varnish, now thankfully removed. It glows like an Old Master and carries an estimate of Ksh295,000-Ksh350,000 ($3,300-$4,000) — but for my money it is nowhere near as exciting as Girl.

Included in the sale is a painting by another Ugandan whose name does not spring easily to the lips of current collectors, one Fabian Mpagi. He died young, aged only 49, in 2002, but his legacy included this superb oil of cattle in a dark, mysterious wood.
Perhaps better known as a sculptor, Mpagi was a fine draughtsman who had the ability, like the English romantic painter Keith Vaughan, to capture the essence of his subjects by reducing them almost to abstractions, as this painting demonstrates. It is offered with an upper estimate of Ksh530,000 ($6,000).

In addition there is a superb wood carving by the Ugandan Francis Nnaggenda called Mother and Child. At a handsome 79cm tall, it carries echoes, with its elaborate curving coiffure, of the carvings by the Chokwe, who come from present-day Angola, of their revered Luba ancestor Chibinda Ilunga. The sale reinforces the growing importance of Uganda on the contemporary arts scene.

Recent exhibitions at the Red Hill Art Gallery to the west of Nairobi have featured the Ugandan painter Geoffrey Mukasa, and the Afriart Gallery in Kampala continues to promote such exciting talents as Joshua Ipoot, Daudi Karungi, Paul Ndema and Eria “Sane” Nsubuga, and this very month sees the Ugandan capital taken over by a city-wide arts festival.

Featuring works by 30 artists from six countries — the DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda — it includes a group of 20 decorated boda boda motorbikes, strategically placed around the city, with one tricked out as a recording studio and another as a mobile cinema.

Called KLA ART 014, the festival has been organised by 32° East | Ugandan Arts Trust, a centre for the exploration and creation of contemporary art. Perhaps among these 30 artists (no fewer than 24 of whom are from the host country) lurks another Kyeyune, Mpagi, Mukasa or Nnaggenda. Time will tell.