Artikel i Daily News Dar es Salaam 3 jan 1975.
If you haven´t been to the National Museum recently, you don´t know what you are missing. There is a unique one-man exhibition simply called “One-Ninety-One”. It is the work of a young Tanzanian, Charles Njau. It closes on January 6, you better rush to see it, Staff Writer MANGENGESA MDIMI reports.
“An artist is more often born than created”, so goes the saying. But whereas art is an inborn thing, there is hardly any need to stress the fact that art has to be nursed and encouraged – just like a newborn baby – in order to blossom.
In the words of Mwalimu Nyerere: “… works of art and achievements of science are products of the intellect which, like land, is one of God´s gifts to man…”
Two weeks ago, the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of National Culture and Youth, Ndugu H. D. Sembuche, officially opened a one-man “One-Ninety-One” art exhibition at the National Museum in Dar es Salaam.
Indeed, perhaps only a handful of friends of the exhibitor – Ndugu Charles Njau – were aware of the exhibition. Why such rare talents are given too little publicity, only God knows.
Charles Njau started sketching images on the ground when he was only three years old. Surely there is art flowing in this young man´s blood.
Those of you who have been at his art exhibition will agree with me that when Charles Njau looks at you, you get the feeling that he is going to paint your images or something. When he explains his work to a visitor, just watch the movements of his hands and you don´t have to be an artist to percieve the artistry in Njau.
Charles Njau´s work is more original and of course, unique. Maybe this is the advantage of having had no formal training in art and little encouragement in the trade. How much more of a pure artist Charles Njau would have been had he recieved some formal training in art!
The “One-Ninety-One” art exhibition, has as the name suggests, 191 fine pieces of art. It took us two long hours going round and absorbing the meaning behind the paintings and drawings.
“I Salute, You, Sir, Madam and All” is the first painting of a man saluting welcome to visitors at the exhibition.
Njau´s current exhibition at the National Museum depicts various facets in everyday life. Some of the paintings tell their story in colour representation and others by way of symbols.
They tell of oppression of one race by another, and of one sex by another sex. The creation of the world as is talked about in the Bible is expressed in the paintings of Charles Njau.
Some other paintings tell of the cultural assimilation, of fear and hope and passion, of frustration and and superstition, and of life and death. Yet others show men dancing and women in labour pains. One painting shows a woman with a contorted face in agony, in the act of abortion surrounded by sharp thornes symbolising the pain.
I was particularly impressed by a painting which shows the birth of Jesus Christ on the top of the Mountain Kilimanjaro, the Mau Mau in Kenya and the Americans in Vietnam. Portraits of various people, drawings and paintings of trees, animals and landscape are, but some of the impressive assortments of art by Charles Njau.
As we were going round the museum enjoying the colourful exhibition, one man who was gazing at one painting as if hypnotised remarked: “Given but a little political orientation, Njau could go far away in the manifestations of our revolution.” I looked at him and said “yes” to myself.
But how many times has Tanzania taken part, as a nation, in art exhibitions in so many places in the world? And how many times budding artists like Njau have been included in such endevours? Does Tanzanian art mean only the Makonde carvings?
Yet, Charles Njau´s “One-Ninety-One” art exhibition is not his first. In 1967 Charles Njau participated in the children´s art exhibition in New York. However, his first great art exhibition was held in 1969 at Mawenzi Secondary School which was followed by another one in 1970 at the same venue.
“I think one of my greatest exhibition,” Njau recalls, “is the one I put up at the Jamhuri Grounds in Moshi during the Tenth Independence Anniversary celebrations.”
Njau was Chairman of the Art Society for two consecutive years at Mkwawa High School. During the two years, he put up art exhibition at the White Horse Inn in 1972 and in April 1973 he travelled to Dar es Salaam and put up an exhibition, “One-Sixty-One”, the first largest exhibition, at the National Museum.
Also in the same year he put up another exhibition at his school. He attended National Service training at Oljoro in Arusha where he volunteered as a painter, sign writer, decorator and designer.
… The current exhibition which ends on January 6 is his eighth. In a few words, let it not suffice you just by reading about art in the books. “One-Ninety-One” is surely worth a visit. As he puts it himself, for Njau is also a poet:-
“God, I have toiled, worked hard
And given lots of energy and breath
To this art of painting
For my beloved people to see
The services I have decided to render
For the betterment of human race
And nothing else, no body else…”