Sylvester Mubayi

[1] Sylvester Mubayi was born in 1942 in the Chihota Reserve near Marondera, Zimbabwe, the sixth child in a family of nine.

[2] In 1969, Frank McEwen, who was the founding director of the Rhodes National Gallery in Harare, opened a workshop school to encourage the development of local artists and his wife Mary (née McFadden) established Vukutu, a sculptural farm near Nyanga: Mubayi was the first sculptor to work there.

[6] According to Jonathan Zilbert, Mubayi at that time used skeletons as a recurring theme in his work, intending them to illustrate ancestral spirits and blood sacrifice.

[3][4] In 1988, Michael Shepherd, a British art critic commented:[2][3][8] “Now that Henry Moore is dead, who is the greatest living stone sculptor?

[9] An exhibition of the same name toured in the US in 2003, with Mubayi's Traditional Healer presented at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Garfield Park Conservatory.