Humphrey Ocean: Africa (2025)

This collection captures all the artist’s wry enjoyment of the world and features many previously unseen drawings.

On regular visits to his sister in Kenya and Tanzania over many years, the British artist and Royal Academician Humphrey Ocean (b. 1951) has chanced upon and recorded in his deft, inimitable style a host of brightly coloured birds, insects, lizards, shop signs, vibrant textile designs and amusing notices.

A fitting and equally playful sequel to his hit sketchbook A Book of Birds, published by the Royal Academy in 2019 alongside Ben Thomas’s authoritative monograph on the artist, this delightful new collection taken from his many travelogs captures all Ocean’s wry enjoyment of the world.