[2] Munyaradzi was the son of a mhondoro, one of the traditional spiritual leaders of his community in Chipuriro (Sipolilo Tribal Trust land) about 30 km from Guruve, Mashonaland in the far north of what was, in 1931, Southern Rhodesia.

[3] Munyaradzi had married and was seeking employment when on 10 September 1967 he was introduced to the Tengenenge Sculpture Community[4] by Tom Blomefield, a white South-African-born farmer of tobacco whose farm had extensive deposits of serpentine stone suitable for carving.

Given his knowledge of woodwork and metal forging, Munyaradzi quickly learned the skills of a sculptor in stone, remaining largely self-taught for his entire career.

1969 was an important year for the new sculpture movement, because it was the time when McEwen took a group of works, mainly from Tengenenge, to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and elsewhere in the US, to critical acclaim.

Munyaradzi derived his subject matter from the natural world, combining it with Christian imagery and depicting it in an unusual, deeply personal fashion.

Celia Winter-Irving, in her book on Stone Sculpture (see Further Reading) wrote “Like Paul Klee, Henry takes a line for a walk but he reins it in after the first steps”.

Most include human or animal faces in which the eyes are carved as simple circles and the eyebrows and nose are cut with straight lines in a T shape.

[12] Images of Munyaradzi's work are easily found on the World Wide Web, for example from the Richard Handelsman's collection[13] where Prayer for the rain (203 cm high) is typical.

As remarked by Olivier Sultan[14] "Known simply as 'Henry', the most widely known Zimbabwean sculptor is like a magician, a sage who knows how to find the essential and is, therefore, able to translate the essence of any being or spirit into stone.