Art Auction East Africa offers 68 lots at Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi on 28 October

The 14th annual Art Auction East Africa will take place at Circle Art Gallery in Nairobi on Wednesday 28 October, starting at 7pm East Africa Time. The sale has 68 lots, split evenly between modern and contemporary works, by artists from nine countries, according to the organisers.

The gallery is on Victoria Square, Riara Road. The sale is run with Strauss & Co, the South African auction house, and is broadcast on the Strauss & Co Invaluable platform as a live virtual auction. Strauss & Co also offers an absentee bidding form for those who cannot bid live.

To bid, register through the "Register to bid" link on the Strauss & Co auction page at straussart.co.za. The organisers publish a How to Bid guide, a Registration & Bidding Form and the Conditions of Sale as PDFs on artauctioneastafrica.com, where all 68 lots can be viewed. Questions about registration go to [email protected].

All the lots are on display at Circle Art Gallery. Strauss & Co lists viewing from Wednesday 14 October to Tuesday 27 October, 10am to 5pm on weekdays and noon to 5pm on weekends.

The organisers' featured lot is The Migration (2005), an oil on canvas measuring 52.5 x 83 cm, signed "Soi 2005" at lower left, by the Kenyan painter Ancent Soi (1939-2022). Highlighted artists include the Kenyans Samuel Wanjau and Meek Gichugu, the Ugandans Fabian Mpagi, Francis Nnaggenda and Kefa Frederick Sempangi, the Sudanese Ahmed Shibrain, Salah Elmur and Rashid Diab, and the Tanzanians Kiure Francis Msangi and Edward Saidi Tingatinga. Works by Bruce Onobrakpeya of Nigeria and Cheri Cherin of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) appear in the sale for the first time.

The organisers' lot list gives estimates in Kenyan shillings with US dollar equivalents. Tingatinga's Untitled (Landscape with Lion and Bird), from 1971, is lot 20 at KSh 1,200,000 to KSh 1,600,000 (US$9,000 to US$12,000). Elmur's Untitled (Seated Figure), from 2019, is lot 33 at KSh 1,300,000 to KSh 2,600,000 (US$10,000 to US$20,000), and Shibrain's The Tempest, dated c.1993-1998, is lot 35 at KSh 1,450,000 to KSh 2,400,000 (US$11,000 to US$18,000).

Msangi has two lots. My First Wife (1987), lot 21, is estimated at KSh 900,000 to KSh 1,500,000 (US$7,000 to US$11,800), and Mt Kilimanjaro at Dawn, lot 22, edition 13/197, at KSh 270,000 to KSh 500,000 (US$2,100 to US$3,900). Wanjau's Untitled (Bird with Chicks), lot 47, is estimated at KSh 900,000 to KSh 1,200,000 (US$7,000 to US$9,000).

Onobrakpeya has two lots. Oyo Weavers (1975), edition 15/50, is lot 15, and Oba Aka II (In the Hands of God) (1980), edition 12/15, is lot 16. Each is estimated at KSh 70,000 to KSh 120,000 (US$550 to US$950). Soi's Untitled (Zebras), from 2011, is lot 3 at KSh 400,000 to KSh 500,000 (US$3,100 to US$3,900).

The 2025 sale, held on 5 November 2025, was the first under the joint banner with Strauss & Co. In its report on that sale, dated 7 November 2025, Strauss & Co said the live virtual auction earned KSh 29,666,980 (US$229,727) from 52 lots sold, with a sell-through rate just shy of 80 per cent. The top lot was Msangi's Baobab Under the Red Moon (1968), which sold for KSh 3,522,000 (US$27,271), more than double its pre-sale estimate.

Circle Art Gallery showed a retrospective of Msangi's work, Kiure Francis Msangi: From Makerere to Stanford and the Nairobi Years, from 9 September to 10 October. The gallery described it as bringing together paintings, prints, drawings and archival material spanning more than four decades of his career.