Magdalene Odundo: Renowned Kenyan Artist Named Chancellor At Prestigious UK University

World-renowned Kenyan artist Magdalene Odundo is set to be named chancellor of the acclaimed University of Creative Arts.

The Professor of Ceramics, who was once a student at the London-based institution, will succeed Dame Zandra Rhodes in June 2018.

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An excited Odundo could not help but reveal how happy she was to be given the opportunity.

“It is an honor to be invited to continue my relationship with a university I have been closely associated with over many years,” Odundo said.

Born in 1950, Magdalene Odundo plunged herself into the creative arts when she took Graphics and Commercial Art as a course in the Nairobi Polytechnic in 1970.

She later moved to London to pursue a higher education where she studied in various institutions including Cambridge College of Art. She acquired a wealth of multidisciplinary experience and after graduating with a First Class degree in 3D Design in 1976, she started teaching at the Commonwealth Institute in London.

Magdalene Odundo later joined the Royal College of Art where she attained her Master’s degree before assuming the role of Professor of Ceramics at the Surrey Institute of Art and Design in 2001.

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Odundo has received high praise for her exhibitions and contribution to the creative arts throughout her career.

In 2008, Professor Odundo was appointed as an Officer of The Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Victoria for services to the arts.

She also received the African Art Recognition Award in Detroit from the Detroit Art Institute’s Friends of African and African-American Art, making her one of the few African artists to hit the milestone.

The highly qualified scholar and professor retired from teaching in 2016 although her work continues to be exhibited across the globe with her art currently forming part of the British Studio Pottery exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art showing from September to December 3rd, 2017.