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Zimbabwean sculptors

51 artists

Few countries are as closely identified with one art form as Zimbabwe is with stone sculpture. From the late 1950s, sculptors working at the National Gallery workshop in Salisbury (now Harare) and at Tengenenge, in the north of the country, began carving serpentine, springstone and other local stones into heads, figures, animals and spirits. Their simplified, polished forms, between the figurative and the abstract, made them famous in Europe and North America in the 1960s and 1970s.

The first generation included Henry Munyaradzi, Nicholas Mukomberanwa, John Takawira, Joram Mariga, Bernard Matemera and Sylvester Mubayi. Later sculptors such as Colleen Madamombe, with her monumental women, Agnes and Gedion Nyanhongo, and Dominic Benhura carried the tradition on, now often in workshops and family studios. These are Zimbabwe's sculptors, most looked-up first. Read Shona sculpture for the history, and see African sculpture.

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Most looked-up first. Names link to our profile, or to Wikipedia where we do not have one yet. Short descriptions from Wikidata; portraits from Wikimedia Commons. Image credits