This watercolour painting of a Turkana tribesman was given to my father in the 1940s. It is one of a number of ethnographic studies of tribes of Kenya that the artist made in order to record their tribal dress. However, she was dissatisfied with this painting because she hadn't succeeded in including all of the headdress in it, hence her gift of it to my father.
Despite the artist's rejection of it as imperfect, it is a valuable rendering of the bodily ornament of the Turkana, and a piece of the history of the material culture of East Africa.
My father was District Commissioner of Turkana district from 1948 to 1949.
Painting of a Turkana tribesman
Contributed by Diana R
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- Location
-
Turkana district, Kenya
- Culture
- Period
-
1940s
- Theme
- Size
-
- H:
- 66cm
- W:
- 50cm
- Colour
- Material
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