Louis Mwaniki was born in 1934 in Nyeri and died in 2010 in Nairobi, Kenya. In 1957, he joined the Margaret Trowell School of Fine Arts, which Margaret Trowell had established in 1937 at Makerere. From available images of his drawings, paintings, prints, and sculptures, it is evident that Mwaniki was an exceptionally gifted artist. Indeed, he was one of the most outstanding pioneering Kenyan artists, and indeed of East Africa, with contemporaries such as Elimo Njau and Sam Ntiro. From as early as 1958, international curators, galleries, and museums recognised and acknowledged Mwaniki's artistic abilities by collecting or by commenting on his artworks.