History
The history of the emergence of Zimbabwean stone carving
The stone sculpture of the Shona people from Zimbabwe emerged initially in 1962 through the work of Joram Mariga and Frank McEwen. Joram Mariga, widely recognized as the father of Zimbabwean Sculpture, formed the first most important group of artists.
Frank McEwen was the founding director of the National Gallery Workshop School in Zimbabwe. The combination of the Workshop School with the Mariga group developed what was possibly the most powerful stable of sculptures since the Italian Renaissance.
Frank McEwen used the workshop to create local talent and was able to arrange an exhibition at the Rodin Museum in Paris. Thirty sculptors exhibited their work and of the ninety-nine sculptures, all but two were sold to some the wealthiest and discerning buyers in Europe. To the Europeans African art was no longer history, it had come back to life.
The particular rapport between the artists and the stone is a major characteristic of Zimbabwean sculpture: first the artist selects from among the blocks of his favorite stone (generally serpentine stone which is indigenous to Zimbabwe) for a piece whose shape "talks to him", one with which he feels an affinity. Most of the time,
the sculptor works simultaneously on several pieces, moving to and fro between rough stones and establishing a true rapport with the emerging forms. Zimbabwean artists directly confront the stone by hand, without sketching an outline on paper before hand, although they will occasionally draw directly onto the stone before carving it.
The result has been an extraordinary outpouring of tribal spirits liberated from the stone in which they dwelt, a safeguarding of African history in a profusion of world class masterpieces that rival and often exceed the best yet seen of art from Africa.
Zimbabwe gained its independence from Great Britain in 1980 and today their stone carvers continue to astound the world of contemporary art with their extraordinary, mystical and spirit based sculptures. The works of Zimbabwe's master sculptors are
in the permanent collections of many famous museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Rodin Museum in Paris. They are also in the private collections of some of the world's most prominent art collectors including the Rockefeller and Rothschild families,
Prince Charles, Sir Richard Attenborough and Cicely Tyson.
