Leilah Babirye valuation
Ugandan-born sculptor in New York whose masks and totems in wood, clay and found metal take their titles from the clans of Buganda.
Leilah Babirye was born in Kampala in 1985 and studied art at Makerere University.
What a work by Leilah Babirye is worth
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
Write to info@whitebankfineart.co.uk, or start below.
Bio
Leilah Babirye was born in Kampala in 1985 and studied art at Makerere University. In 2015 she was publicly outed as a lesbian in the Ugandan press, where it is illegal to be openly gay, was denied supervision for her master's degree and was disowned by her family. A residency on Fire Island brought her to New York, and in 2018 she was granted asylum in the United States. She lives and works in Brooklyn. Her sculptures, in wood, ceramic, metal and found materials, often take the form of masks and tall, totemic figures. Their titles draw on the clan names of Buganda and on the queen mothers of its royal family, and the work explores how a queer community keeps those names even when disowned. She has shown with Gordon Robichaux in New York and Stephen Friedman Gallery in London, and at Socrates Sculpture Park.
Her sculptures are unique: carved and burnt wood, glazed ceramic heads and pieces assembled from metal and other found materials, alongside drawings and paintings on paper. Assembled pieces need careful handling, since found elements can loosen or corrode, and glazed ceramics chip. The gallery a work came from and its date place it within her output.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
