John Linda

John Linda was born in Mosambique. He was Makonde, not Malua as most of other painters. In fact, among the few students of E.S.Tingatinga they were two Makonde people born in Mosambique. One was John Linda and the other was Adeus Mandu.

The reason is that E.S.Tingatinga married a Makonde women (Agatha) and Adues and Linda were relatives of Tingatinga´s wife.
John Linda came to Tanzania in order to work on sisal farm in Tanga. He came to Tanzania after Adeus. And it was Adeus who introduced him to E.S.Tingatinga.

According to A.Hasani, Linda was together with Ajaba and Adeus among the three first students of E.S. Tingatinga
Linda used to paint elephants, village life. Sometimes birds.
A.Hasani remembers that Linda was a quite active seller too. He used to put up his T-shirt and say: I  am hungry when selling to expatriates. Usually all paintings were sold then.

But he did not stop there. He often put the cargo of paintings on his head and set out to the area where expatriates lived. He knocked on doors and usually he sold all paintings. He took occasionally paintings of his friends but later he took only his paintings on the “sale journey”.

One day Linda went to Mombasa, it was sometimes in 1980. He never came back – the painters learned that he died there. He was sick. It is said that a white man has helped to bury him.
Linda had 2 children, one girl and one boy – we don’t know where they live today