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The East African Years - Murals for the Entebbe Airport, Uganda, 1960

 
 
 
 


















Shown here are two of the eight panels commisioned for the Entebbe Airport,
Uganda, East Africa, when Kay Lipton was the resident artist for the British
High Commision in the Protectorate years from 1954-1960.
They were subsequently damaged in 1976 during the reign of Idi Amin,
when Israeli commandos raided the airport in an operation
dubbed "Entebbe" to release the hostages that were captured after an
Arab-German hijacking of Air France Flight 139 out of Tel Aviv.
 
The King of Ankole, Uganda, East Africa  sent his emmissary  to commission Kay Lipton, in her Kampala studio,
to paint a Loyal Address to  Queen Elizabeth  on the skin of a Royal Drum .
It  was  to be presented to her in honour of her visit to Uganda with the Duke of Edinburgh in 1954.
 

The Queen visited Uganda on April 28, 1954

At that time, Uganda was still a British colony, struggling to manage an uprising in the Uganda tribal

kingdom that saw the King Mutesa II of Buganda forcefully exiled in England.

But because of the instability at the time, the Queen avoided Kampala City during her visit,

spending her time in Entebbe, Jinja and Western Uganda. Thus she visited Ankole illustrated below.

 

 
and The Royal Drum...painted and signed by Kay Lipton in 1954 
        Now on display in the Commonwealth Institute, London.