30 Facts About Henry Tayali

Henry Nkole Tayali was a multi-lingual Zambian painter, sculptor, printmaker, raconteur and lecturer.

Henry Tayali has been described as Zambia's most famous painter.

Henry Tayali first started painting while at school in Bulawayo in the late 1950s.

Henry Tayali attended secondary school in Bulawayo at Mpopoma High School and during this time produced the work Destiny.

The money in the Fund would be released when Henry Tayali was accepted at University.

In early 1967, before his Cambridge 'O' Level Certificate results came out, Henry Tayali left Rhodesia for Zambia, and applied for a bursary from the Zambian Government - expressing an interest in Architecture with Art.

Shortly after Idi Amin seized power in Uganda, Henry Tayali returned to Zambia and then started work at the University of Zambia where he joined the Institute of African Studies in Lusaka as a lecturer in African art and later as University Artist.

In 1972, Henry Tayali got a German Academic Exchange Service scholarship to study for a Masters in Fine Arts at the Staatliche Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, West Germany.

Henry Tayali was the first recipient of the DAAD to be selected from south of the equator.

In early 1978, Henry Tayali returned to West Germany to embark on a Doctor of Fine Arts degree at the Akademie fur Bildende Kunste, but the arrangements did not work out and he returned to Zambia bitterly disappointed.

Henry Tayali's son Rhodrick is an artist and interior designer by training and a graduate of the Fachhochschule Aachen, and is an accomplished artist in his own right.

Henry Tayali was buried at Leopards Hill Cemetery in Lusaka.

Lambeth encouraged Henry Tayali to pursue art as a career, and enrolled him on an artwork course.

Henry Tayali's painting career took off after that, and using water colours, Tayali begun to produce varied, vibrant, dynamic works such as Sunset Road and Destiny.

Henry Tayali produced sculptures, amongst them The Graduate at the University of Zambia campus in Lusaka, as well as silk-screens and woodcuts, a few of these were printed as greeting cards and sold through newsagents and book stores.

Henry Tayali held exhibitions in Lusaka, Bulawayo, Aachen, Dusseldorf, London, Alberta, and Toronto as well as in Zambia, where a few of his exhibitions were opened by Kenneth Kaunda, the first President of Zambia.

Henry Tayali was associated with artists, authors and politicians, including Simon and Cynthia Zukas, Andrew Sardanis and American Professor Melvin Edwards at home and abroad, many of them becoming lifelong friends.

Henry Tayali was a keen photographer, having studied photography for his Masters, and always carried his trusted Leica SLR camera with him wherever he went.

Henry Tayali was involved in organising, and part of, the attendance of the Zambian delegation at the Second African Festival of Arts and Culture in Lagos, Nigeria, 1977.

Henry Tayali's paintings were distinctive, blending African and Western styles, reflecting the influences on his life.

Henry Tayali was not averse to using his art to pass comment on any of them.

From a young age, Henry Tayali had always been interested in sculptures and modelling - and he went on to produce sculptures such as The Graduate seen here on the banner of the University of Zambia web-page, at the UNZA Great East Road campus.

Henry Tayali produced a huge sculpture of a bird at the Kapiri Mposhi railway station - the terminus end of the mid-seventies Chinese built Tazara railway, whose other end is in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania's capital on the Indian Ocean coast.

Henry Tayali's painting Destiny, produced while Tayali was still in school, has been described as "an attempt to express the profound thoughts of a serious young man, about the struggles of Mankind now and in the future" and has been exhibited around the world.

Henry Tayali had a close association with the Mpapa Gallery, where his works had often been exhibited.

The art writer, Jean Kennedy said that Henry Tayali's work, "makes strong statements, frequently leavened with humor, about personal and communal tragedies".

Henry Tayali was one of the first Africans to work tirelessly to raise the profile of indigenous African art and crafts in Zambia, Africa, and the world through workshops, conferences, discussions, exhibitions, newspaper articles, magazines and television appearances.

Henry Tayali played a very pivotal and influential role in cultural and artistic development in Zambia.

Henry Tayali was president of the International Association of Artists in Zambia, and represented Zambia at various international symposia and conferences.

Henry Tayali headed the Art Centre Foundation, the National Craft Council of Zambia, and the National Museums Board.