Geraldine Robarts

Geraldine Robarts is a well known artist/painter based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is a born colourist who is captivated by the life of East African people. She is enthralled by painting “it is true I like working (painting) all the time and I believe painting is a feast for the eye”.

She was born in London in 1939, and grew up in South Africa. Although she was the youngest ever student to be accepted for the Slade School of Art in London, she elected to complete her studies in South Africa, receiving a first class honours degree in Fine Art from the University of Witwatersrand. She later gained MA in Education from the University of Nairobi. In 1968 she was selected to exhibit in “Artists of Fame and Promise” in Liverpool, England and in 1977 she took the Gold Medal at the arts competition in Palermo, Italy. S[Click on image to enlarge]he has exhibited worldwide and her work is in both institutional and private collections. For many years Geraldine was a lecturer in Fine Art and Head of Art Education, at Makerere University, Kampala and then became Head of Painting at Kenyatta University, Nairobi. Geraldine is a Canadian landed immigrant and in 1989 worked as Visiting Professor in Art Education at McGill University, Montreal. She has a large family living in Canada, China, England, Germany, South Africa and the USA. She won the open prize for designing the Africa Hall at Expo 2000, Hannover.

[Click on image to enlarge]She is a Baha’i and has been a prominent worker with women’s groups in Kenya since 1972. In the early 1960’s she brought the craft of Batik making from Indonesia to Uganda and then to Kenya because the price of paints, brushes, and canvas was beyond the pocket of local artists, and in the early 1990’s created workshops for making colourful ornamental sisal weaving and wall-hangings in Kitui, Kenya. She also introduced solar fruit drying of mangoes and for 20,000 people at Kalimani, Kitui, facilitated the development of the health centre and water scheme providing water even in times of drought.


Awards
Gold Medal, Artists of Fame and Promise Exhibition, Palermo, 1980
UN-We the Peoples: 50 Communities Award

Biographies
International Who's Who in Art, 1979
The World Who's Who of Women, 1977