Stone sculpture is an art for which the African nation of Zimbabwe is well known around the

world.

Contents

1 Origins

2 Post-Independence

3 International Exhibitions

4 References and Further Reading

5 See also

Origins[edit source | edit]

Modern African stone sculpture is not "traditional", although much of its subject matter has

traditional roots. There were few, if any, individual sculptors working in stone in the first half of

the 20th century but following the opening in 1957 of the Rhodes National Gallery in Salisbury,

its first Director, Frank McEwen, encouraged local artists to explore that medium. Within a few

years, a group of local artists including Thomas Mukarobgwa, Joram Mariga and his nephew

John Takawira were learning the necessary skills, mainly carving in soapstone. This budding art

movement was relatively slow to develop but was given massive impetus in 1966 by Tom

Blomefield, a white South-African-born farmer of tobacco whose farm at Tengenenge near

Guruve had extensive deposits of serpentine stone suitable for carving. A sculptor in stone

himself, he wanted to diversify the use of his land and welcomed new sculptors onto it to form a

community of working artists. This was in part because at that time there were international

sanctions against Rhodesia’s white government led by Ian Smith, who had declared Unilateral

Declaration of Independence in 1965, and tobacco was no longer able to generate sufficient

income. Appropriately, Tengenenge means “The Beginning of the Beginning” – in this case of a

significant new enterprise that has lasted through to the present day.

Further details of the establishment of the "first generation" of new Shona sculptors are given in

the individual biographies of its leading members: Bernard Matemera, Sylvester Mubayi, Henry

Mukarobgwa, Thomas Mukarobgwa, Henry Munyaradzi, Joram Mariga, Joseph Ndandarika,

Bernard Takawira and his brother John. This group also includes the famed Mukomberanwa

family (Nicholas Mukomberanwa and his protegees Anderson Mukomberanwa, Lawrence

Mukomberanwa, Taguma Mukomberanwa, Netsai Mukomberanwa, Ennica Mukomberanwa,

and Nesbert Mukomberanwa) whose works have been featured worldwide. Works by several of

these first generation artists are included in the McEwen bequest to the British Museum.[1]

During its early years of growth, the nascent "Shona sculpture movement" was described as an

art renaissance, an art phenomenon and a miracle. Critics and collectors could not understand

how an art genre had developed with such vigour, spontaneity and originality in an area of Africa

which had none of the great sculptural heritage of West Africa and had previously been

described in terms of the visual arts as artistically barren.[2][3][4][5]

Fifteen years of sanctions against Rhodesia limited the international exposure of the sculpture.

Nevertheless, owing mainly to the efforts of Frank McEwen, the work was shown in several

international exhibitions, some of which are listed below. This period pre-independence

witnessed the honing of technical skills, the deepening of expressive power, use of harder and

different stones and the creation of many outstanding works. The "Shona sculpture movement"

was well underway and had many patrons and advocates.

1963 New Art from Rhodesia, Commonwealth Arts Festival, Royal Festival Hall,

London

1968-9 New African Art: The Central African Workshop School, MOMA, New York

(Toured in USA)

1969 Contemporary African Arts, Camden Arts Centre, London.

1970 Sculptures Contemporaine de Vukutu, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

1971 Sculpture Contemporaine des Shonas d’Afrique, Musée Rodin, Paris

1971 Gallery 101, Johannesburg

1971 Artists Gallery, Cape Town

1972 Shona sculptures of Rhodesia, ICA Gallery, London

1972 Galerie Helliggyst, Copenhagen

1972 MOMA, New York

1979 Kunst Aus Africa, Berlin. Staatlichen Kunstalle went to Bremen and Stockholm

1979 Feingarten Gallery, Los Angeles

Post-Independence[edit source | edit]

Since independence in 1980, the sculpture has continued to be exhibited in the art capitals of the

world and great acclaim has accrued to contemporary artists such as Dominic Benhura and

Tapfuma Gutsa[6]

and the art form itself.

Support and encouragement has come from many sources.

1. Sponsors of a variety of Sculpture communities, of which those at Tengenenge [7]

and

Chapungu [8]

have been most influential. Further Communities have developed post-

independence, for example the Chitungwiza Arts Centre, which was an initiative

involving the United Nations Development Programme and the Zimbabwe Ministry of

Education and Culture, who provided the land.

2. Commercial sponsors in Zimbabwe, including the Baringa Corporation, the Nedlaw

Investment and Trust Corporation, Zimre Holdings Limited, BAT (who part-fund the

Workshop School of the National Gallery) and Mobil (who support the "Zimbabwe

Heritage" annual exhibition at the Gallery).

3. The Zimbabwean Government, especially through its support for the National Gallery,

which now has regional centres in Bulawayo and Mutare.

4. Patrons who buy works or write forewords to catalogues for international exhibitions.

Examples of well-known individuals include Richard Attenborough, Richard E. Grant

and Joshua Nkomo.

5. A group of specialist dealers who display the works in their Galleries worldwide and

communicate their own enthusiasm for this art form to visitors, who by viewing,

purchasing and enjoying the objects spread that enthusiasm around.

Roy Guthrie quoted from a 1991 article in The Sunday Telegraph in his introduction to an

exhibition in South Africa [9]

to remind art lovers that

"There is a widespread assumption today that art must necessarily be international.... But against

this trend one finds isolated pockets of resistance, which suggest that good art can (and perhaps

must) be a local affair – the product of a particular place and culture. And one of the most

remarkable in the contemporary world is the school of sculptors that has flourished among the

Shona tribe of Zimbabwe in the last 30 years... placed beside the dismal stuff so beloved of the

international art bureaucracy – as they were in the 1990 Biennale – these African carvings shine

out in a desolate world."

In spite of increasing worldwide demand for the sculptures, as yet little of what McEwen feared

might just be an "airport art" style of commercialisation has occurred. The most dedicated of

artists display a high degree of integrity, never copying and still working entirely by hand, with

spontaneity and a confidence in their skills, unrestricted by externally-imposed ideas of what

their "art" should be. Now, over fifty years on from the first tentative steps towards a new

sculptural tradition, many Zimbabwean artists make their living from full-time sculpting and the

very best can stand comparison with contemporary sculptors anywhere else. The sculpture they

produce speaks of fundamental human experiences - experiences such as grief, elation, humour,

anxiety and spiritual search - and has always managed to communicate these in a profoundly

simple and direct way that is both rare and extremely refreshing. The artist 'works' together with

his stone and it is believed that 'nothing which exists naturally is inanimate'- it has a spirit and

life of its own. One is always aware of the stone's contribution in the finished sculpture and it is

indeed fortunate that in Zimbabwe a magnificent range of stones are available from which to

choose: hard black springstone, richly coloured serpentine and soapstones, firm grey limestone

and semi-precious Verdite and Lepidolite.[10][11][12][13]

Jonathan Zilberg has pointed out that there is a parallel market within Zimbabwe for what he

calls flow sculptures – whose subject-matter is the family (ukama in Shona) – and which are

produced throughout the country, from suburban Harare to Guruve in the north-eastern and

Mutare in the east. These readily available and cheap forms of sculpture are, he believes, of more

interest to local black Zimbabweans than the semi-abstract figurative sculptures of the type

mainly seen in museums and exported to overseas destinations. The flow sculptures are still

capable of demonstrating innovation in art and most are individually carved, in styles that are

characteristic of the individual artists.[14]

Some sculptors in Zimbabwe work in media other than stone. For example, at Zimbabwe

Heritage 1988, Paul Machowani won an Award of Distinction for his metal piece "Ngozi" and in

1992 Joseph Chanota’s metal piece "Thinking of the Drought" won the same award. Bulawayo

has been a centre for metal sculpture, with artists such as David Ndlovu and Adam Madebele.

Arthur Azevedo, who works in Harare and creates welded metal sculptures, won the President’s

Award of Honour at the First Mobil Zimbabwe Heritage Biennale in 1998.[15]

Wood carving has

a long history in Zimbabwe and some of its leading exponents are Zephania Tshuma and Morris

Tendai.[3]

International Exhibitions[edit source | edit]

1982 Janet Fleischer Gallery, Philadelphia, USA

1984 Henry of Tengenenge, Commonwealth Institute, London

1985 Kustchatze aus Africa, Frankfurt, Germany

1985 Henry of Tengenenge, Feingarten Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

1989 Zimbabwe op de Berg, Foundation Beelden op de Berg, Wageningen, The

Netherlands

1990 Contemporary Stone Carving from Zimbabwe, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK

1990 Zimbabwe Heritage (National Gallery of Zimbabwe), Auckland, New Zealand

1994 The Magic of Henry, Contemporary Fine Art Gallery Eton, Berkshire, UK

2000 Chapungu: Custom and Legend – A Culture in Stone, Kew Gardens, UK

2001 Tengenenge Art, Celia Winter-Irving, World Art Foundation, The Netherlands

Permanent exhibition, Zimbabwe Sculpture: a Tradition in Stone, Atlanta, USA, at

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Works by Agnes Nyanhongo, Gedion

Nyanhongo, Norbert Shamuyarira, Lameck Bonjisi, Edronce Rukodzi, Sylvester Mubayi,

Joe Mutasa, Nicholas Mukomberanwa, Gladman Zinyeka, Tapfuma Gutsa, and Amos

Supuni.[16]

References and Further Reading[edit source | edit]

1. ^ "McEwen Collection". britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 2012-01-25.

2. ^ Arnold M I. (1981) "Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture". Louis Bolze Publishing,

Bulawayo. ISBN 0797407472

3. ^ a b Mor F. (1987) "Shona Sculpture". Jongwe Printing and Publishing Co, Harare. ISBN

0797407812

4. ^ Winter-Irving C. (1991). "Stone Sculpture in Zimbabwe", Roblaw Publishers, Harare,

ISBN 0908309147 (Paperback) ISBN 0908309112 (Cloth bound)

5. ^ Sultan, O. (1994) "Life in Stone: Zimbabwean Sculpture – Birth of a Contemporary Art

Form". ISBN 9781779090232

6. ^ Spring C. (2008) "Angaza Africa: African Art now", Laurence King Publishing, ISBN

9781856695480

7. ^ Leyten, H. (1994) "Tengenenge", Kasteel Groenveld, Baarn, Netherlands. ISBN

9074281052

8. ^ Guthrie R (2000) "Chapungu: Custom and Legend – A Culture in Stone". Exhibition

Catalogue for Kew ASIN B001ANIIXW

9. ^ Guthrie R. (1997) "Zimbabwe Stone Sculpture". Catalogue for exhibition at

Kirstenbosch, Printed by Scanshop, Cape Town

10. ^ Kasfir S L. (2000). "Contemporary African Art", Thames and Hudson, London. ISBN

0500203288

11. ^ Willett F (2002). "African Art", Thames and Hudson, London ISBN 0500203644

12. ^ Winter-Irving C. (2004) "Pieces of Time: An anthology of articles on Zimbabwe’s

stone sculpture published in The Herald and Zimbabwe Mirror 1999-2000". Mambo

Press, Zimbabwe, ISBN 0869227815

13. ^ Kasfir S L. (2007). “African Art and the Colonial Encounter: Inventing a Global

Commodity”. Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253219221

14. ^ Zilberg J. (2006) [1] National Gallery archive

15. ^ See annual catalogues for Zimbabwe Heritage, produced by the National Gallery

16. ^ "Zimbabwe Sculpture", Atlanta Airport Site

Nicholas Mukomberanwa

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Nicholas Mukomberanwa

Nicholas Mukomberanwa

Birth name Obert Matafi

Born

1940

Buhera District, Rhodesia (today

Zimbabwe)

Died 12 November 2000

Harare, Zimbabwe

Nationality Zimbabwean

Field Sculpture

Training Serima Mission, Masvingo Province and

informally

Movement Shona sculpture

Awards Winner, Nedlaw award, 1989

Nicholas Mukomberanwa (1940 - 12 November 2002) was a Zimbabwean sculptor and art

teacher. He was among the most famous products of the Workshop School at the National

Gallery of Zimbabwe and an art mentor and teacher to the Mukomberanwa Family of sculptors.

His work has been exhibited in galleries around the world and he remains one of Zimbabwe's

most famous artists.

Contents

1 Early life and education

2 Later life and exhibitions

o 2.1 Accolades

o 2.2 Exhibitions

o 2.3 Artistic Style

o 2.4 Exhibition pieces

o 2.5 International institutions holding Nicholas’s work

3 Influence on other sculptors

4 References

Early life and education[edit source | edit]

Mukomberanwa was born in the Buhera District of the Manicaland Province in 1940. He was

named Obert Matafi, first-born son of his father Marakia’s second wife Chihute, who died when

Obert was two years old. From then on he was brought up by Marakia’s first wife Maiguru. In

1958 at the St Benedicts Mission, Obert was baptised Nicholas and took the surname

Mukomberanwa in honour of an ancestor.[1]

Nicholas attended Zvishavani Primary School while his father worked at the nearby King

Asbestos Mines. Art was not taught at school but by the time he was 15 Nicholas had produced

his first sculpture in clay. By the age of 17 he was accepted at St Benedicts Mission,

Chiendambuya, where he was recognised as skilled in painting and drawing and so was

encouraged to move to the Serima Mission, Masvingo Province. There, Father Groeber

encouraged sculpting and the craft of woodcarving and Nicholas encountered a blend of

traditional Christian iconography and tribal African pieces. However, after a productive year at

Serima, Mukomberanwa was expelled and moved to Salisbury (now Harare), taking a job as an

officer in the British South Africa Police, where he remained for 15 years (1962-76).[1]

Nicholas was still drawing for recreation and in 1962 he met Frank McEwen, then director of the

National Gallery of Rhodesia (today the National Gallery of Zimbabwe), who encouraged him to

take up stone carving. McEwen provided materials and training in a workshop in the Gallery

basement, and soon Mukomberanwa was sculpting in his free time, producing his first stone

piece The Thief. Thanks to McEwen, the "first generation" of new Shona sculptors were given

international exposure despite the sanctions being imposed on Southern Rhodesia in the period

1965-1980 and Nicholas’s work joined that from other leading members from the Workshop

School such as Sylvester Mubayi, Joram Mariga and Joseph Ndandarika. Early works by many

of the first generation artists, including three by Nicolas, are now in the McEwen bequest to the

British Museum.[2]

International exhibitions, in which Nicholas’s sculptures were included, up until Frank

McEwen’s resignation as museum director in 1973, are listed below.

1964 International Art Exhibition, Lusaka

1965 New Arts from Rhodesia, Commonwealth Arts Festival, Royal Festival Hall,

London

1968 Rhodesian Sculpture, toured South Africa

1969 Contemporary African Arts, Camden Arts Centre, London.

1970 Sculptures Contemporaine de Vukutu, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

1971 Sculpture Contemporaine des Shonas d’Afrique, Musée Rodin, Paris

1972 Shona sculptures of Rhodesia, ICA Gallery, London

During its early years of growth, the nascent "Shona sculpture movement" was described as an

art renaissance, an art phenomenon and a miracle. Critics and collectors could not understand

how an art genre had developed with such vigour, spontaneity and originality in an area of Africa

which had none of the great sculptural heritage of West Africa and had previously been

described in terms of the visual arts as artistically barren.[3][4][5][6]

Mukomberanwa married his first wife, Grace, in 1965 and they had eight children.[1]

Eventually,

in a risky move, he decided to end his career with the police to become a sculptor full-time. The

gambit paid off, and by the late 1970s and in the 1980s his work was being shown in many

venues. He continued to hone his skills over the following decade, developing one of the most

distinctive personal styles found in his generation of Zimbabwean stone sculptors.

In 1968, Ulli Beier wrote [7]

"Mukomberanwa’s sculpture is full of ideas and inventions, he has a great variety of attitudes

and expressions and he likes to portray whole clusters of intertwined figures. He works in many

different stones, continuously using textures and colours. The mood of his sculptures is always

meditative, sometimes religious, and they are of a very high quality."

In 1969, Frank McEwen’s wife Mary (née McFadden) established Vukutu, a sculptural farm near

Inyanga, and in 1970 McEwen arranged for Nicholas to have a sabbatical from the police and

spend 6 months there working on large pieces of black Penhalonga serpentine that would form

part of the Musée Rodin exhibition.[1]

Later life and exhibitions[edit source | edit]

In 1976, Nicholas resigned from the police to become a professional sculptor and by 1977 had a

sold-out show of works at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg. In 1978, he arranged to buy a

farm near Ruwa from Roy Guthrie, founder of the Chapungu Sculpture Park, and it was there

that he settled with his wives (he had married his second wife Betty in 1976) and family.[1]

Accolades[edit source | edit]

One of Nicholas’s works, called The Chief, was depicted on a Zimbabwean stamp issued to

commemorate Commonwealth Day on 14 March 1983. It formed the $1 value in a set completed

with works by Henry Munyaradzi, Joseph Ndandarika and John Takawira.[8]

In 1986 Prime Minister, Robert Mugabe, bestowed on Nicholas a special award for his

contribution to the visual arts in Zimbabwe, while in 1989 Nicholas was the overall winner in the

annual Nedlaw / Baringa exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe for his piece "Street

Beggar" and was chosen with Tapfuma Gutsa and Henry Munyaradzi to represent Zimbabwe in

the New York exhibition "Contemporary African Artists - Changing Tradition".[1]

Exhibitions[edit source | edit]

In June–July 1993, Nicholas was joined by his four sons Anderson (born 1968), Malachia (born

1970), Tendai (born 1974) and Lawrence (born 1976) in presenting an exhibition of their

sculpture at the Chapungu Sculpture Park, Harare.[9]

By the end of the millennium, Mukomberanwa's reputation was further enhanced by the many

exhibitions in which his work was displayed. Some of these are listed below. Later in his career,

he slowed his production of art to enjoy farming and cattle ranching on the Ruwa farm. He

produced less, creating more personal sculptures and slowing down the pace of his life

considerably.

1974 African Artist Festival, Chicago, USA

1978 God’s Men and beasts, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

1981 Art in Action Festival, Waterperry, UK

1981 Art from Africa, Commonwealth Institute, London, UK

1983 Stein Skulpturen aus Zimbabwe, Frankfurt, Germany

1984 Shona Sculpture, Pulchri Studio, The Hague, Netherlands

1984 Plazzotta Studio, Chelsea, London, UK

1985 Kustchatze aus Zimbabwe, Frankfurt, Germany

1985 Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture, Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University,

USA

1985 and 1987 Contemporary Stone Sculpture, Irving Sculpture Gallery, Sydney,

Australia

1986 Africa House, London, UK

1986-8 Soul in Stone, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, Australia

1986 Moderne Skulpturen aus Zimbabwe, Vienna, Austria

1987 Contemporary Stone Sculpture from Zimbabwe, Barbican Centre, London, UK

1987 Zimbabwe Heritage, UNESCO, Paris, France

1987 African Influence Gallery, Boston, USA

1989 Zimbabwe op de Berg, Foundation Beelden op de Berg, Wageningen, The

Netherlands

1989 Shona Sculpture, Robert Steele Gallery, Adelaide, Australia

1990 Honorable Mention, African Sculpture Exhibition, Venice Biennale, Italy

1990 Contemporary African Artists - Changing Tradition, Studio Museum New York,

USA

1990 Contemporary Stone Carving from Zimbabwe, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK

1990 One-Person Exhibition, Auckland, New Zealand

1990 Stone Sculpture from Zimbabwe, Millesgården Museum, Stockholm, Sweden

1992 Shona Sculpture International Symposium, Tokyo, Japan

1993 Nicholas and Family, Chapungu Sculpture Park, Harare, Zimbabwe

2000 Chapungu: Custom and Legend – A Culture in Stone, Kew Gardens, UK

2004 Retrospective, Zuva Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

Artistic Style[edit source | edit]

Mukomberanwa's sculptures showed human forms at various levels of abstraction and sometimes

depicted animals, birds or spiritual feelings; most were highly polished, although in a few cases

he would contrast smooth sections with areas of great roughness. He worked primarily in hard

stone, using local materials such as opal stone, cobalt stone and other serpentines, especially a

local variant called springstone found at Tengenenge.

Celia Winter-Irving said of Nicholas [5]

"Unlike many other sculptors, Mukomberanwa speaks from personal experience rather than

recounting what he has heard or been told. To him beliefs must be personally held rather than

customarily observed. Over the years, his work has shown a sense of the increasing spiritual

support which has sustained his art."

Exhibition pieces[edit source | edit]

Some of Mukomberanwa's exhibition pieces, such as The Greedy One (1985) and The

Corrupting Power of Money (1985), have toured worldwide; for example to the Yorkshire

Sculpture Park in 1990,[10]

where the works on display included examples from all the artists

who had contributed to the 1971 Musée Rodin exhibition. The catalogue "Chapungu: Culture

and Legend – A Culture in Stone" for the exhibition at Kew Gardens in 2000 depicts Nicholas’s

sculptures My Experience (Springstone, 1992) on p. 58-59, Man in a Trance (Springstone, 1987)

on p. 92-93, Women of Wisdom (Opal stone, 1987) on p. 102-103 and The Corrupting Power of

Money (Limestone, 1985) on p. 114-115.[11]

International institutions holding Nicholas’s work[edit source | edit]

Mukomberanwa's works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the

Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, the Indianapolis Museum of Art [12]

and the British

Museum [2]

as well as in the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.[5]

Influence on other sculptors[edit source | edit]

Mukomberanwa died suddenly on 12 November 2002. All of his children became sculptors: his

sons Anderson, Malachia, Tendai, Lawrence, and Taguma; and his daughters Netsai and Ennica.

Another son, his eighth child, had tragically been drowned.[5]

Nicholas was also the uncle and

teacher of Nesbert Mukomberanwa and mentor to African-American sculptor M. Scott Johnson.

An appropriate quote from eldest son Anderson may serve as Nicholas’s memorial [13]

.... a sage, a sculptor, a father to me, a father-figure to many, many sculptors working in stone in

Zimbabwe. Although gone, he remains with us because his wisdom guides the sculptures we

make, and the actions we take.

References[edit source | edit]

1. ^ a b c d e f Guthrie R. "Nicholas Mukomberanwa", The Gallery Shona Sculpture (Pvt) Ltd,

Published by Z.P.H., Zimbabwe, 1989, ISBN 0-949225-83-5.

2. ^ a b "McEwen Collection". britishmuseum.org. Retrieved 2012-01-25.

3. ^ Arnold, M. I. (1981) Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture. Louis Bolze Publishing, Bulawayo.

ISBN 0-7974-0747-2

4. ^ Mor F. (1987) Shona Sculpture. Jongwe Printing and Publishing Co, Harare. ISBN 0-

7974-0781-2

5. ^ a b c d Winter-Irving C. (1991). Stone Sculpture in Zimbabwe, Roblaw Publishers,

Harare, ISBN 0-908309-14-7 (Paperback) ISBN 0-908309-11-2 (Cloth bound)

6. ^ Sultan, O. (1994) Life in Stone: Zimbabwean Sculpture – Birth of a Contemporary Art

Form. ISBN 978-1-77909-023-2

7. ^ Ulli B. "Contemporary Art in Africa", Pall Mall Press, London, 1968, ISBN 0-269-

99283-9

8. ^ http://www.artcreationsafrica.com/artists/firstgenerationartist/nicholas-

mukomberanwa.php

9. ^ Mawdsley, J. (1993) "Nicholas and Family". Exhibition catalogue, Chapungu Sculpture

Park. No ISBN

10. ^ Contemporary Stone Carving from Zimbabwe, 1990, ISBN 1-871480-04-3

11. ^ Catalogue published by Chapungu Sculpture Park, 2000, 136pp printed in full colour,

with photographs by Jerry Hardman-Jones and text by Roy Guthrie (no ISBN)

12. ^ "The Law Givers". imamuseum.org. Retrieved 2012-01-29.

13. ^ Foreword in Winter-Irving C. (2003) New Visions In Stone (commissioned by art

promoters Tim & Dawn Anderson with Glenn Sullivan), Harare (no ISBN)