Tinga Tinga Arts Cooperative

Cooperative of painters carrying on the style of Eduardo Saidi Tingatinga.

The cooperative's main outlet, a modest open-fronted shed off Haile Selassie Road near the Msasani Slipway, is the best place in Tanzania to see the painting style at the source. Twenty or so artists work in the back yard, and stretched canvases line the walls — antelopes in green-blue silhouette, lions in fields of dots, giraffe pairs with elongated stylised necks.

Prices range from a few thousand shillings for a postcard-sized board to several hundred dollars for large signed canvases. Bring cash; haggling is gentle but expected. The cooperative ships internationally for a fee, and the staff can recommend better-known living painters if you are looking to invest seriously.

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A story
Edward Saidi Tingatinga, born in southern Tanzania in 1932, started painting on hardboard squares with bicycle paint in the late 1960s — flat, brightly coloured animals, all eyes and stylised tails. He was killed in 1972 in a case of mistaken identity by Dar police, aged 39. His brother-in-law and a handful of students set up the cooperative that still carries his name.

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