An enquiry into five decades of state patronage of visual arts in Tanzania: 1961 - 2011

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role played by the Tanzania government in the patronage of the visual arts from 1961 to 2011. It was conducted in Arusha, Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, Kilimanjaro, Mbeya, Mwanza and Tabora. The enquiry was designed to establish the extent to which the government through its Parastatal organizations and the ruling party during the one party system, have promoted the visual arts in the country within the five decades of independence. The study applied qualitative research methods for data collection and data analysis. The data collections were the analysis of relevant documents, interviews and observations by the researcher during the visits on the various sites. The intention was to provide information that could provide the researcher with data that could present scholarly research approaches. The findings of this study showed that the Tanzania government has promoted visual arts since December 1962. The spirit of promotion has been sustainable in that in 2008 the second State House Art Committee was formed to follow up the recommendations made by the first State House Committee that was established in 1999. Much earlier, four prominent parastatal organizations commissioned artists to design and execute murals whose subject matter expressed their functions. The study concludes that, throughout her fifty years of independence, Tanzania has not belittled the role of visual arts in society. Various monuments with artistic works provide enough evidence to support the statement. It is for this reason, the study strongly recommends that the A-level fine art curriculum that was first published in 1999, should be implemented in schools that teach ‘O’ level fine art and increase the number of secondary schools that offer fine art. Currently there are thirty eight secondary schools that teach art, twenty four public schools and fourteen private schools.