Zimbabwean
art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
includes decorative
esthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...
applied to many aspects of life, including
art object
A work of art, artwork, art piece, piece of art or art object is an artistic creation of aesthetic value. Except for "work of art", which may be used of any work regarded as art in its widest sense, including works from literature ...
s as such, utilitarian objects, objects used in religion, warfare, in
propaganda, and in many other spheres. Within this broad arena,
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
has several identifiable categories of art. It is a hallmark of
African culture
African or Africans may refer to:
* Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa:
** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa
*** Ethn ...
s in general that art touches many aspects of life, and most tribes have a vigorous and often recognisable canon of styles and a great range of art-worked objects. These can include
mask
A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment and often they have been employed for rituals and rights. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and pra ...
s,
drums,
textile
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
decoration, beadwork, carving,
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
,
ceramic
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...
in various forms, housing and the person themselves. Decoration of the body in permanent ways such as
scarification
Scarification involves scratching, etching, burning/branding, or superficially cutting designs, pictures, or words into the skin as a permanent body modification or body art. The body modification can take roughly 6–12 months to heal. In the ...
or
tattoo
A tattoo is a form of body modification made by inserting tattoo ink, dyes, and/or pigments, either indelible or temporary, into the dermis layer of the skin to form a design. Tattoo artists create these designs using several tattooing ...
or impermanently as in painting the body for a ceremony is a common feature of African cultures.
Spoken or musical art is also a prominent part of Africas generally. Various instruments including drums, lamellophones and stringed bows have been used in Zimbabwe, while oratory, poetry, fable telling, praise singing and tribal ritual chants are also prominent.
In recent decades Zimbabwe has become widely recognized internationally for its
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
.
History
It is useful to examine Zimbabwean art through time, by area, by main tribal division and as indicative of recent historic and political changes.
There is an artistic tradition in
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...
that can be traced back to
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and ...
of the
Early and
Late Stone Age and
rock paintings
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also m ...
from the Late Stone Age. Many rock paintings produced by
San artists between 10000 and 2000 years ago are found in cultural sites in Zimbabwe and these demonstrate a high degree of skill in drawing. Many depict recognisable animal figures and use shading and colour to enhance the visual impact. The
archaeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...
of Zimbabwe includes numerous pottery finds, which assist in the reconstruction of linguistic and cultural groupings within what is here termed
Shona
Shona often refers to:
* Shona people, a Southern African people
* Shona language, a Bantu language spoken by Shona people today
Shona may also refer to:
* ''Shona'' (album), 1994 album by New Zealand singer Shona Laing
* Shona (given name)
* S ...
. The pottery indicates that the people of the
Late Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...
were settled
agriculturists and they have been categorised as forming groups such as the Harare culture and the Leopard’s Kopje culture: the latter established in 980 AD in a site called K2. This group moved to
Mapungubwe
The Kingdom of Mapungubwe (or Maphungubgwe) (c. 1075–c. 1220) was a medieval state in South Africa located at the confluence of the Shashe and Limpopo rivers, south of Great Zimbabwe. The name is derived from either TjiKalanga and Tshivenda ...
where they used stone walls to separate the ruling class from the rest of the population. This settlement was abandoned in the thirteenth century at around the time that a now much better-known site was developed by others who lived on the Zimbabwean plateau. This was
Great Zimbabwe, which dates from about 1250–1500 AD. It is a stone-walled town (''Zimbabwe'' means "royal residence") and shows evidence in its archaeology of skilled stone working: the walls were made of a local granite and no mortar was used in their construction. When excavated,
six soapstone birds and a
soapstone
Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in the ...
bowl were found in the eastern enclosure of the monument, so these
Shona-speaking Gumanye people certainly produced sculpture. Each object was carved from a single piece of stone and the birds have an aesthetic quality that places them as genuine "art". In comparing them to other better-known African stone sculpture, for example from the
Yoruba culture
Distinctive cultural norms prevail in Yorubaland and among the Yoruba people.Kola Abimbola, Yoruba Culture: ''A Philosophical Account'', Iroko Academic Publishers, 2005.
Art
Sculpture
The Yoruba are said to be prolific sculptors, famous for ...
, Philip Allison, writing in 1968, stated "The stone sculptures of Rhodesia are few in number and of no great aesthetic distinction, but Zimbabwe itself has a place of peculiar importance in the study of African cultures".
Stone Age
In prehistory the area was widely settled by Kung peoples, the so-called
Khoikhoi
Khoekhoen (singular Khoekhoe) (or Khoikhoi in the former orthography; formerly also '' Hottentots''"Hottentot, n. and adj." ''OED Online'', Oxford University Press, March 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/88829. Accessed 13 May 2018. Citing G. S. ...
or San, Hottentot or Bushmen people, who were
hunter gatherer
A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle (sociology), lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants bu ...
s. They often lived in
caves
A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...
and made various artworks, including beading from shells for personal decoration, incising designs on
ostrich
Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There ...
shells and utilitarian objects such as clay water straws and also on the cave walls themselves. These dynamic and varied
cave paintings
In archaeology, Cave paintings are a type of parietal art (which category also includes petroglyphs, or engravings), found on the wall or ceilings of caves. The term usually implies prehistoric origin, and the oldest known are more than 40,000 y ...
date from around 10000 BCE and depict humans hunting many kinds of animals, warfare between humans, mystical and other unidentified marks, landscape and ceremonies where the humans are obviously decorated or in costume. The colours vary from black through brown, red,
ochre, yellow and white. The pigments used are unknown, though presumably contain a mix of local materials such as earth
oxides, fat, vegetable juices and possibly fluids from
larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
...
l insects. Certainly they have lasted for thousands of years.
Their descendants, who live mainly in Botswana and Namibia, sing a variety of uniquely structured and tuneful songs, accompanied sometimes by a plucked or struck bow. They also have a repertoire of dances, and there is no reason to suspect their ancestors did not do the same thing.
Iron Age
These Stone Age people were supplanted by Iron Age
Nguni Nguni may refer to:
*Nguni languages
* Nguni cattle
*Nguni people
*Nguni sheep, which divide into the Zulu, Pedi, and Swazi types
*Nguni stick-fighting
* Nguni shield
* Nguni homestead
*Nguni (surname) Nguni is an African surname. Notable people ...
-derived pastoral and farming peoples migrating in from the east and north around 2000 years ago, who became the ancestors of the
WaRozwi/Barotse people and by derivation the
Amashona peoples. The art of these people can be seen in many decorated first-fired clay pots, where typically a repeated dhol-dhol (linear
herringbone)
motif or similar edging was applied. Other artwork is harder to source, though it can be assumed they decorated the body and had
beadwork
Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another by stringing them onto a thread or thin wire with a sewing or beading needle or sewing them to cloth. Beads are produced in a diverse range of materials, shapes, and sizes, and vary b ...
and other art styles related to typical styles of the East and Central African Nguni peoples. A recurrent motif in Shona art is the transformation of a human into an animal of some.
Later prehistory
At around the same time as the earlier incursions of these Bantu-type people (200BCE) there were sporadic expeditions by South-East coastal dwellers, probably by the
Save River or over mountain passes in the
Eastern Highlands
:''"Eastern Highlands" also refers to Eastern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea, and part of the Great Dividing Range, Australia.''
The Eastern Highlands, also known as the Manica Highlands, is a mountain range on the border of Zimbabw ...
, into the Zimbabwe area to obtain
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
for trade with
Arab
The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
traders trading as far south as the mouth of the Savi. They built stone forts extending into the interior at one day's march from each other, with the final one being the complex now known as
Great Zimbabwe. To service the coastal trade a town called
Sofala
Sofala, at present known as Nova Sofala, used to be the chief seaport of the Mwenemutapa Kingdom, whose capital was at Mount Fura. It is located on the Sofala Bank in Sofala Province of Mozambique. It was founded by Somali merchants. This name w ...
was established at the mouth of the Sofala river on the east coast. It had its heydey in around 700 AD/CE and served the
Mwenemutapa
The Kingdom of Mutapa – sometimes referred to as the Mutapa Empire, Mwenemutapa, ( sn, Mwene we Mutapa, pt, Monomotapa) – was an African kingdom in Zimbabwe, which expanded to what is now modern-day Mozambique.
The Portuguese term ''Mono ...
/
Monomotapa Kingdom, whose capital was
Great Zimbabwe. Arabs took up residence in Sofala around 900AD/CE.
Early sculpture
Archaeology at Zimbabwe has shown several distinct phases of building and styles of stonework. It is likely the original complex was rather functional - essentially a
fort
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
and trading post only, and the later and more elaborate building occurred when the complex became the central administrative and royal centre of activity for the area. Some of the architectural features are probably linked with styles of coastal
Swahili architecture and some are uniquely local.
Chinese pottery
Chinese ceramics show a continuous development since pre-dynastic times and are one of the most significant forms of Chinese art and ceramics globally. The first pottery was made during the Palaeolithic era. Chinese ceramics range from construc ...
shards, ivory, glass objects, local gold objects, Arabic and local beads,
copper ingots,
iron
Iron () is a chemical element with Symbol (chemistry), symbol Fe (from la, Wikt:ferrum, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 element, group 8 of the periodic table. It is, Abundanc ...
ingots and other trade items have been found at Zimbabwe. The herringbone and other stepped linear forms of decoration in the walls are a feature of the most recent stonework. Similar stonework is seen at
Khami
Khami (also written as ''Khame'', ''Kame'' or ''Kami'') is a ruined city located 22 kilometres west of Bulawayo, in Zimbabwe. It was once the capital of the Kingdom of Butwa of the Torwa dynasty. It is now a national monument, and became a UN ...
ruins, a fort built on the way to Zimbabwe. However, the most impressive and unique feature of Zimbabwe are the huge
soapstone birds, the so-called
Zimbabwe bird
The stone-carved Zimbabwe Bird is the national emblem of Zimbabwe, appearing on the national flags and coats of arms of both Zimbabwe and Rhodesia, as well as on Rhodesian dollar, banknotes and coins (first on the Coins of the Rhodesian pound, Rho ...
s, depicting a
bird of prey
Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles and other smaller birds). In addition to speed and strength, these predat ...
perched on a zig-zag base motif. These birds are possibly based on the
bateleur eagle
The bateleur (; ''Terathopius ecaudatus'') is a medium-sized eagle in the family Accipitridae. It is often considered a relative of the snake eagles and, like them, it is classified within the subfamily Circaetinae.Kemp, A. C., G. M. Kirwan, an ...
or maybe a
vulture
A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...
species and might have had something to do with a
religious cult
In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This s ...
or indicative of a
totem
A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or '' doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system.
While ''the ...
animal for the ruling people at the time. Most of these sculptures are still in the country but one is in South Africa where it still adorns
Groote Schuur
Groote Schuur (, Dutch for "big shed") is an estate in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1657, the estate was owned by the Dutch East India Company which used it partly as a granary. Later, the farm and farmhouse was sold into private hands. Groote Sc ...
an official residence, once the home of Cecil Rhodes. Another unexplained motif at Zimbabwe, which like the birds were mounted on the perimeter wall of the Great Enclosure, were stelae or tall narrow rectilinear pillars of rock (probably natural fracture artefacts) set at intervals round the top of the wall. The Zimbabwe bird is the most prominent motif of the current
Zimbabwe flag.
Amandebele incursions
The origin of
Amandebele speaking peoples in southern Zimbabwe received its main impetus from settlement around 1840 under Mzilikazi, a Khumalo chief who rebelled against Zulu rule. However, it is likely that such tribes began crossing the Limpopo sporadically from about 1800 onwards. Amandebele conflict with the Amashona drove them northwards into what was dubbed in colonial times Mashonaland. These
Amandebele/
Matabele peoples had several distinct art forms differing from the Amashona: in pottery styles, bead aprons and headpieces, house decoration, carving and decoration of war implements such as clubs /
knobkerrie
A knobkerrie, also spelled knobkerry, knobkierie, and knopkierie (Afrikaans), is a form of wooden Club (weapon), club, used mainly in Southern and Eastern Africa. Typically they have a large knob at one end and can be used for throwing at animals ...
s and shields.
19th and early 20th century
Art in Zimbabwe lost most of its spiritual power with the conversion of the majority of the population to Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries. Missionaries harmed the local cultures by demanding destruction of anything they regarded as anti-Christian, in particular masks or carvings thought to have votive powers, that is, to be appealing to some god that was not the Christian one. By the second world war most art objects produced in Zimbabwe were simply that: produced for tourist and local white settler consumption. With the advent of guns, animal skins prepared and decorated with small panels of other hides also began to appear more frequently in the early 20th century, as well as '
kaross A kaross is a cloak made of sheepskin, or the hide of other animals, with the hair left on. It is properly confined to the coat of skin without sleeves and used to be worn by the Khoikhoi and Bushmen / San peoples of South Africa. These karosses b ...
es' or fur blankets influenced by BaTchwana styles from Botswana to the south.
As for travelers to the area during the
Victorian period
In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...
, they used art, especially painting, to depict some of what they saw there. This art of the
colonial period took landscape as its main theme and many of the European artists were present as part of expeditions that aimed to inform the public in Europe about life in Africa. For example,
Thomas Baines
(John) Thomas Baines (27 November 1820 – 8 May 1875) was an English artist and explorer of British colonial southern Africa and Australia.
Life and work
Born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, on 27 November 1820, Baines was apprenticed to a coach ...
joined the
Zambezi
The Zambezi River (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than hal ...
expedition led by
David Livingstone
David Livingstone (; 19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, and pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, an explorer in Africa, and one of the most popular British heroes of t ...
in 1858 and in 1861 he was one of the first to make oil paintings of
Victoria Falls
Victoria Falls ( Lozi: ''Mosi-oa-Tunya'', "The Smoke That Thunders"; Tonga: ''Shungu Namutitima'', "Boiling Water") is a waterfall on the Zambezi River in southern Africa, which provides habitat for several unique species of plants and anim ...
.
John Guille Millais spent six months of 1893 sketching and hunting in Zimbabwe.
[Winter-Irving C. (1991) "Visual Arts since the Nineteenth Century", Chapter 9 in "Stone Sculpture in Zimbabwe", Roblaw Publishers, ]Harare
Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...
,
In the 1940s a Zimbabwe philanthropist named
Jairos Jiri began to teach disabled people various artistic skills and centralised their production for sale in several outlets nationwide. These proved very popular and returned money to persons otherwise excluded from normal commercial activity. Jairos Jiri centres remain an important part of the artistic output in Zimbabwe. Typical items include tiles, tiled tables and wall plaques, basketwork, beading, carvings in wood and stone, jewellery and paintings.
Prelude to independence
In the mid-1970s the nationalist guerilla incursions resulted in several atrocities against people in rural villages, including the sawing off of the upper lip of those perceived as collaborating with the government forces. The white government collated photographic images and a text list of these events into a propaganda booklet called 'Anatomy of Terror'. This was designed to show the brutality of the nationalists against innocent rural native people. Images from this publication are today to be found on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
(for example under 'Terrorists in the Rhodesian bush').
Other art from the white minority during the civil "Rhodesian Bush" (1968 - 1979) war consisted mainly of depictions of indigenous fauna and flora and landscapes. These subjects had always been popular and remain popular to this day among white artists. No individual white artist expressed any significant political sentiment during the civil war era. However, many film, still and sound clips celebrating the government forces' role during this time are currently available on YouTube.
Painting in the 20th and 21st centuries
While there were many well-known white artists in Rhodesia prior to independence in 1980, there were relatively few black artists of note. One of these was
Kingsley Sambo (1932–1977), who started to paint at the Cyrene Mission where Canon Edward Paterson taught art. Two of Sambo’s paintings are in the
MoMA. Other artists, who were also leading sculptors, were
Thomas Mukarobgwa and
Joseph Ndandarika who had studied with
John Groeber at the
Serima Mission Church.
Although the Workshop School of the National Gallery supported and encouraged painters from 1957, Rhodesia had few Colleges for Fine Arts. The Bulawayo College of Fine Art and Design trained artists in fine art and graphic design for Rhodesian industry and it was not until 1963 that Alex Lambert set up the
Mzilikazi Art School in
Bulawayo
Bulawayo (, ; Ndebele: ''Bulawayo'') is the second largest city in Zimbabwe, and the largest city in the country's Matabeleland region. The city's population is disputed; the 2022 census listed it at 665,940, while the Bulawayo City Council ...
specifically to encourage local people to take up art.
The
National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
has, since 1986, promoted local artists by hosting an annual exhibition of contemporary visual arts called "Zimbabwe Heritage". Patronage from Zimbabwean companies – the Baringa Corporation (for paintings, graphics, textiles, ceramics and photograph) and the Nedlaw Investment and Trust Corporation (for sculpture) – initially supported the expense of having an international panel of judges come to Zimbabwe to assess the works and make Awards. Later, the sponsorship of the event grew to include international companies such as
Mobil,
Lever Brothers
Lever Brothers was a British manufacturing company founded in 1885 by two brothers: William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), and James Darcy Lever (1854–1916). They invested in and successfully promoted a new soap-making p ...
,
The BOC Group
BOC Ltd is a British based multinational, industrial gas company, more commonly known as BOC, now a part of Linde plc. In September 2004, BOC had over 30,000 employees on six continents, with sales of over £10.6 billion. BOC was a constituent ...
and
Longman
Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC.
Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also ...
. Early winners of Awards of Distinction in the painters and graphics category included Berry Bickle (1987), Bert Hemsteede (1988), Rashid Jogee (1992) and Tichaona Madzamba (1992).
[See annual catalogues for ''Zimbabwe Heritage'', produced by the ]National Gallery
The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current Director ...
Painters who have established reputations in post-independence Zimbabwe include
Dumisani Ngwenya,
Taylor Nkomo and
Richard Jack
Richard Jack (15 February 1866 – 30 June 1952) was a painter of portraits, figure subjects, interiors and landscapes, and prominent war artist for Canada.
Biography
Jack was born 15 February 1866 in Sunderland, County Durham, United K ...
.
[
In 2018, the ]Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) is a public non-profit museum in Cape Town, South Africa. Zeitz MOCAA opened on September 22, 2017 as the largest museum of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. The museum is locat ...
held an exhibition by 29 Zimbabwean artists examining painting as commentary to the sociopolitical. The exhibition statement says: "Painting has a long history in Zimbabwe... For decades, artists from Zimbabwe have manipulated this medium as a way of subtly articulating complex issues, speaking in intricate, allegorical codes."
Sculpture in the 20th and 21st centuries
Since antiquity local artists have been using the steatite/soapstone
Soapstone (also known as steatite or soaprock) is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in the ...
deposits of the eastern Zimbabwe mountain ranges to produce artworks showing, among other things, the common Shona theme of animal/human inter-morphosis. These works became much larger under the patronage of white collectors in the 1960s (though the Zimbabwe birds of antiquity are massive) and now it is common to see monumental sculptures in hard Serpentine stone both nationally and internationally.
Chapungu Sculpture Park in Harare
Harare (; formerly Salisbury ) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 940 km2 (371 mi2) and a population of 2.12 million in the 2012 census and an estimated 3.12 million in its metropolitan ...
is currently an important locality for display of (mainly) Shona sculptors and carvers. Anothe
Chapungu Sculpture Park
was created in 2007 in the United States, along with a gallery, in Loveland, Colorado. '' Zimbabwe Sculpture: a Tradition in Stone'' is on permanent display at Atlanta's airport.
Noted contemporary artists include sculptors Dominic Benhura
Dominic Benhura (born 1968) is a Zimbabwean sculptor.
Benhura was born in Murewa, to the northeast of arare
Arare may refer to:
*Norimaki Arare or Arale Norimaki, the main character in ''Dr. Slump'' media
*Arare (food), a bite-sized Japanese rice cracker
*Japanese destroyer Arare, a warship sunk in 1942
{{disambig ...
His father died before his birth, and he was raised by his mother. As he was an excellent student, it was suggested that he be se ...
and Tapfuma Gutsa
Tapfuma Gutsa (born 1956) is a Zimbabwean sculptor.
A native of Harare, Gutsa studied sculpture with Cornelius Manguma at the Driefontein Mission School, later becoming the first Zimbabwean recipient of a British Council award. The scholarshi ...
, and painters Kingsley Sambo and .
Villa Mangiacane in Tuscany hosts one of the largest modern collections of Shona Art sculptures in Europe with over 220 pieces on display across its grounds. AVAC Arts now supports the adaptation and utilization of new technologies in sculpture and runs an online portal facilitating its international trade.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Art Of Zimbabwe