Sculpture of Zimbabwe
Central Zimbabwe contains the "Great Dyke" – a source of serpentine rocks of many types including a hard variety locally called springstone.
He met with Thomas Mukarobgwa, a young indigenous artist steeped in rural knowledge and spirituality, and offered him an opportunity to pursue a career in art.
[4][5] The 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.
This pre-independence period witnessed the honing of technical skills, the deepening of expressive power, use of harder and different types of stones, and the creation of many outstanding works.
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.
[17][18][19][20] 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 northeast and Mutare in the east.
[21] Another artist, Bryn Taurai Mteki, created a large sculpture titled “Chippi”, which was unveiled during the sixth All-Africa Games, hosted in Zimbabwe in September 1995.
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.
[28] The current poor economic conditions in Zimbabwe and recent hyper-inflation means that it is increasingly difficult for its artists to prosper and make a living from full-time sculpting.
