A Patron of Afrikan Culture and The Arts
To set out to accumulate a prodigious collection of craft items, jewels, textiles, artworks, documents and pre-colonial books with a team of one would seem the sheerest folly. But if the focus is African material culture and the collector is Joseph Murumbi, then it begins to look like wisdom. For nobody in Kenya’s cultural history comes close to the private collection Murumbi (a renowned patron of African artistic productions) accumulated.
In this final installment of a two-part series, we take a closer look at Joseph Murumbi’s post-political life as a cultural icon.
Following his departure from politics, Murumbi joined the Rothman’s cigarette company as an executive. He then also served briefly as the first chairman of the Kenya National Archives before focussing exclusively on collecting African art, jewels, and craft items. He also served as a board member for the African Steel Pipes company – and all this takes us to the late 1960s and the early 1970s.
Reconstructing Afrikan (Kenyan) Heritage
Inspired by his travels across Afrika and especially his visits to antiquities markets around the world during his time as the foreign minister, Murumbi looked forward to establishing a museum displaying Afrikan objects and artifacts.
During his local art collecting expeditions, Murumbi came across Alan Donovan’s ‘Northern frontier’ (as he, Donovan, liked to call them) exhibits at the Studio Arts’ 68 in Nairobi with which he was impressed. Alan Donovan was an ex-US civil servant-turned-collector of African objects and artifacts who had resigned from his US State Deparment’s job in Nigeria in protest of Nigeria’s 1968 presidential elections. He made Kenya his home and the objects he dabbed as ‘the Northern Frontier art’ were indigenous Turkana artifacts.
Murumbi instructed Donovan to fetch more indigenous Turkana artefacts most of which he intended to purchase. Donovan obliged. This was the beginning of a partnership and friendship that would last for decades. Their partnership undoubtedly played a crucial role in protecting the Murumbi collection from expatriation as we shall see.
In 1972, the duo founded African Heritage – a Pan Afrikan gallery and restaurant located along Kenyatta Avenue in Nairobi and the first of its kind on the Afrikan continent. Also involved in its cofounding were Santagati and Sheila Murumbi, the cultural icon’s wife. “It was in l972, that Murumbi confided in me about his dream to set up a Pan African Centre in Nairobi. He wanted local people and tourists could see the creativity of the entire continent like he had seen during his time as Foreign Minister when he had set up the Country’s missions and high commissions.” Donovan averred.
For the gallery’s inaugural exhibition at the end of 1972 or the beginning of 1973, two budding East African artists were on show – Elkana Ong’esa, our nation’s sculpting sage, and Francis Nnaggenda, ‘the Dean of East African artists’ – a Ugandan. When Murumbi came across works created by those two artists, his appreciation of their art was pure and intense. For Nnaggenda, he bought several of his life-size sculptures and installed them in his Muthaiga compound. It’s also at the opening of the gallery’s first exhibition that he implored Margarett Kenyatta then the mayor of Nairobi to support Nnaggenda’s works.
Fascinated by Ong’esa’s bird themes, he was the first to commission a sculpture from the artist in 1975. So impressive were his bird form sculptures that one was adopted as part of the gallery’s official branding. As Alan Donovan once wrote: “One of those bird sculptures he bought from Elkana now occupies a prominent place in the Kenya National Archives. It stands next to the huge “Baga” mask that brought Murumbi and myself together to open African Heritage. It became the famous logo of the firm, appearing on all of its yellow shopping bags, receipts and letterheads.”
In 1976, a fire broke out at the African Heritage Gallery and destroyed large stores of African art from around the continent. Like in the past, Murumbi, a man abrim with good will and good intentions and generous without cynicism found the courage to rebuild in such grinding extremes of discomfort. Disappointed with the vandalism that had destroyed his four years of dedicated hard work, Alan Donovan was “…ready to buy a ticket and go back to the States after the fire,” he revealed. “But when Joe asked me to stay on so we could still rebuild the gallery, I agreed,” Alan Donovan added.
How much had been lost was unclear at the time. The Afrikan Heritage collection was just getting on track, becoming diverse and satisfying after years of purposeful work. Here a question arises – with the 1938 destruction of the only precolonial historical records that existed about Kenya, could there have been a political dimension behind this act of vandalism of the African Heritage Gallery through fire?
Nonetheless, no collector has set about more determinedly with such a mixture of extreme humility, sacrifice, and extreme ambition to make Kenya’s and by and large Afrika’s collective cultural memory great. To rebuild the gallery anew, Murumbi sold, in 1977, a significant portion of his assets – his Muthaiga house and his Africana collection, a collection of Afrikan books and texts before the 1900s.
Most notable perhaps was his insistence on selling his collection and house to the Kenyan government rather than abroad. “He had been explicit about not wanting his collections leaving Kenya” averred Alan Donovan. Earning a fraction of the amount that it would fetch from prospective buyers abroad, it came with a condition attached – that the government would use his Muthaiga and compound to set up a Pan African Research and Study Centre (Murumbi Institute of African Studies). Further, that the collection would serve as the initial permanent collection for the country’s cultural heritage (Kenya had none at the time) and that the collection was to be displayed in situ.
With the ownership of the project passed to the National Archives to foresee its delivery, it was predicted to be completed and opened to the public not later than June 1980. Unesco had pledged technical and financial support for the project.
Unfortunately, Murumbi was not ideally lucky in his allocation of a part of his collection to the government of Kenya. President Moi failed to make good on his promise to build a national institution to ensure its preservation.
The Murumbi Collection’s 1980s Fate
With the ownership of the project passed to the National Archives to foresee its completion, it was predicted to be completed and opened to the public not later than June 1980. UNESCO pledged technical and financial support for the project where two adjoining plots to Murumbi’s Muthaiga house were to be purchased.
Unfortunately, President Moi’s regime weaseled its way out of helping construct a national institution to ensure the preservation of the Murumbi collection. Instead, any information regarding the progress of the project was cloaked in a veil of secrecy. Made possible by the onset of multipartism in 1990 (10 years later), a Nation Media investigation was to reveal that:
“the former Kenya National Archives plot number LR No 214/405 has subsequently been subdivided into three plots of 0.74 acres each whose new numbers are LR No 209/11274 (allocated to Ms Soneth Limited of P.O. Box 47000, Nairobi), LR No 209/11275 (allocated to Gideon Moi of P.O. Box 30510, Nairobi) and LR No 209/11276 (allocated to Leonard Kipkitui arap Sawe of P.O. Box 2037, Nakuru)” (Names written in bold for emphasis).
The Kenya National Archives plot mentioned in the above investigation was Murumbi’s Muthaiga compound – a compound decorated with splendid indigenous trees avidly gardened by Murumbi. These trees had been felled during the loot. Even worse was the involvement of a ruling president’s son, Gideon Moi, in claiming the loot.
To Murumbi’s great disappointment, the Muthaiga house and compound had not been transformed into a research institution as he had intended.
Settles Among His Kinsmen, The Uasin Gishu Maasai
“I have gone back to settle among my mother’s people” the unflinching patron of African arts was quoted in his biography A Path Not Taken. Murumbi made this decision after he sold his collection to the government and illness was slowly taking a toll on his ability to run African Heritage alongside Alan Donovan.
In retreating from the art scene, he would relocate to Intona, a place near Trans Mara and which suitably means ‘roots’ in Maasai. Here, he intended to introduce his kinsmen to modern farming techniques. Chief among these was the establishment of a medical research centre for Maasai cattle and the introduction of large-scale crop farming. Murumbi’s maternal kinsmen are the Uasin Gishu Maasai clan who were relocated by the colonialists from the present day Uasin Gishu county to Maasai Mara and Trans Mara region in 1930.
To acquire the 2065-acre piece of land located between Logorian and Kilgoris in Narok, Murumbi was partly assisted by his cousin John Konchella, the Member of Parliament for Narok West at the time. The legislator also served as the assistant minister for the Health and Education dockets. He would build a 35-room mansion mimicking a design common in the coastal areas of Kenya with its outside doors sourced from Lamu. Even as he oriented himself towards farming, scores of Afrikan as well as European art and craft items decorated his Intona house. He and Sheila had relocated with their remaining collection when they permanently left Nairobi.
For his farming pursuits he took a KES 578,875 loan through Intona Ranch Ltd in 1978, which he repaid. However, his ensuing efforts were hampered by a number of hurdles. Firstly, when he contracted the American company Tiffany Enterprises to conduct a feasibility study for the entire Narok district, he sought assistance from Tony Marshal, the US ambassador to Kenya at the time. Murumbi wanted the diplomat to help him secure US aid for the feasibility study which was to cost $ 120,000. His request was declined.
Secondly, when Tony Marshal helped him get a commercial loan from an unnamed US bank in Kenya, his efforts were thwarted by the Narok local government authorities. And thirdly, amidst all these shenanigans, Murumbi was negotiating with Black Hodge to set up a workshop for its Case tractors in Narok. Sitting on the board of the British material handling equipment company, Murumbi intended to purchase their tractors to bolster his large-scale crop-farming ambitions. But this too did not materialise.
It is against this backdrop that Murumbi approached the Agricultural Finance Corporation in 1985 for a second loan estimated at KES 8.6 million secured by the (Intona ranch) land’s title.