{"id":1562,"date":"2024-02-06T14:07:13","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T14:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/?p=1562"},"modified":"2024-02-06T14:11:35","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T14:11:35","slug":"mzee-mayunga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/mzee-mayunga\/","title":{"rendered":"Mzee Mayunga"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Artist:<\/strong> Simon George Mpata<\/p>

Catalogue:<\/strong> 74<\/p>

Material:<\/strong> Bicycle Paint on Board<\/p>

Dimensions:<\/strong> 60.9x 61.2cm<\/p>

Date:<\/strong> c. late 1960s, early 1970s<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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About the artwork<\/h2>

The painting depicts a white-haired, bearded man, surrounded by snakes. He is sitting on a yellow stool under a green tree, against a red background.<\/p>

“Faithfully following the Tingatinga style, Simon Mpata has created a work with all of its defining characteristics: a square composition executed with industrial bicycle paint on board, a richly concentrated palette of reds, blues, greens and yellows, and a narrative driven by animals.<\/p>

Tingatinga painting was founded in Tanzania the 1960s by Mpata\u2019s half-brother, Edward Saidi Tingatinga. Mpata was known to be the most faithful follower of his brother\u2019s style.<\/p>

The work features a stylized white-haired man seated on a stool labelled \u2018Mzee Mayunga,\u2019 loosely meaning \u2018Elder\u2019 in Swahili. He grabs at two snakes that lunge from a tree and a nearby building while several other snakes slither around a green tree behind him. The text on the tree trunk loosely translates to \u2018The Snake Healer was born in Tabora, Tanzania in 1923.\u2019 This suggests that the white-haired figure depicted in the work may be a portrait of a specific Elder.<\/p>

Like Mandu Adeusi\u2019s work, it is possible that this painting was one of the \u2018Paintings from African Street Painters\u2019 added to the collection between 1971 and 1973.”<\/p>

Meredith Loper, 2019<\/p><\/div><\/section>

About the artist<\/h2>

Simon George Mpata (born Tanzania, 1942-1984).<\/p>

“Simon George Mpata (also spelled Mapata) was born in 1942 in Tanzania and is the youngest half-brother of Edward Saidi Tingatinga. E. S. Tingatinga was an active artist for four years before he was tragically killed in 1972.<\/p>

Before his untimely death, Tingatinga amassed several followers, including Mpata, who adopted their teacher\u2019s simplified and stylized square compositions of animals and people. Mpata was a devoted brother and the most faithful to the Tingatinga style out of all of his E. S. Tingatinga\u2019s followers.<\/p>

After his brother\u2019s death, Mpata moved to Nairobi, Kenya where he opened his own studio. He began exhibiting with Gallery Watatu. During this time, a Japanese magazine editor visiting Nairobi encountered Mpata\u2019s work and became an advocate of his work in Japan and elsewhere abroad. There is now a safari club bearing Mpata\u2019s name and a building built in his memory designed by Edward Sazuki in Japan.<\/p>

Mpata died in 1984 at age 42.”<\/p>

Meredith Loper, 2019<\/p><\/div><\/section>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artist: Simon George Mpata Catalogue: 74 Material: Bicycle Paint on Board Dimensions: 60.9x 61.2cm Date: c. late 1960s, early 1970s About the artwork The painting depicts a white-haired, bearded man, surrounded by snakes. He is sitting on a yellow stool under a green tree, against a red background. “Faithfully following the Tingatinga style, Simon Mpata […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1567,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,149],"tags":[148],"class_list":["post-1562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-modern-african-art","category-simon-george-mpata","tag-simon-george-mpata"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1562"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1562\/revisions\/1568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.argyll-bute.gov.uk\/argyllcollection\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}