Art, Design & Fashion
Landmark
Theresa Musoke
born 1945
The first woman to take a fine art degree at Makerere
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Uganda Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
One of five admitted to Makerere's art school in 1960, and in 1963 the first woman to graduate from it. Her 1964 mural is still on the wall at Mary Stuart Hall.
Theresa Musoke was born in Kampala in 1945 and is a Ugandan-Kenyan painter, known for experimental and expressive work on East African wildlife and on women's lives.
In 1960 she was one of five admitted to the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Arts at Makerere, and in 1963 became the first woman to graduate from it with a degree; she won the Margaret Trowell Painting Prize in 1965. Her 1964 mural Symbols of Birth and New Life remains in Mary Stuart Hall at Makerere. She later took a master's in fine art at the University of Pennsylvania, and spent more than two decades in Kenya after leaving Uganda during the war years.
In 1960 she was one of five admitted to the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Arts at Makerere, and in 1963 became the first woman to graduate from it with a degree; she won the Margaret Trowell Painting Prize in 1965. Her 1964 mural Symbols of Birth and New Life remains in Mary Stuart Hall at Makerere. She later took a master's in fine art at the University of Pennsylvania, and spent more than two decades in Kenya after leaving Uganda during the war years.
- Wikipedia — Theresa Musoke
- MoMA post — Theresa Musoke's surrealist art
- Contemporary And — Theresa Musoke: a lifetime dedicated to art in East Africa
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