Tinga tinga paintings are very popular among the tourists who visit African countries like Tanzania, Kenya, Zanzibar and neighboring countries. These painting have bright hues of vibrant colors and have naivety in their drawings. These painting remind people of Africa, the colors in continent, the peaceful environment, tribal people and animals which are free and roam at ease. This painting style developed in the 1960’s in the area near Oyster Bay in Tanzania and then, as it became popular, it spread in the other east African countries. Traditionally, these painting are made on masonite boards and painted using bicycle colours. These paints give the paintings lots of colors and brightness.
There is a very interesting story behind these tinga tinga paintings. Won’t you love to know how it all started? Well let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there lived a man named Edward Saidi Tingatinga (sorry, no princess this time). He was born in a farmer family in southeast Tanzania in 1937. In 1957, he went to Dar-es-Saalam in search of work. Till 1961, he worked odd jobs. But one day, he was fascinated when he saw tourists buying local Zairian arts at premium price. He decided to sell painting. Due to lack of money, he went scavenging and finally used masonite board and bicycle paints to make his first painting. As he was not a trained artist, there was a lot of naivety in his art. But his luck worked. The naivety in his paintings became their USP, that is, unique selling point. And this is how tinga tinga paintings started.
As paintings started selling well, Edward trained his family members. This style was taught to other people too and hence the tinga tinga school evolved. These paintings are done to according to the needs of tourist and hence whole style is very tourist oriented. Paintings are small in size so that they are easily portable. Also these are painted keeping the taste of American and European tourists in mind. Hence, there are lots of floras and faunas depicted and mostly a jungle or Mount Kilimanjaro in background. Other than that, whether the tinga tinga painting style is original or is a derivative of east African art is still debated. After the death of Edward tingatinga, his six direct followers and relatives from family joined to form the ting tinga partnership, which was later known as tinga tinga arts cooperative society. Although TACS is the most official representation of tingatinga heritage, very small numbers of tinga tinga painters are directly related to it.
