newsArt exhibition at Oxford University could be good news for stone sculptors in Zimbabwe
A Shona sculptor at work. After Independence in 1980, Zimbabwean works of art were sold for hundreds – sometimes thousands – of pounds in Europe, USA and Japan, making buyers of local art rich like Midas while keeping talented artists and their families close to the breadline. (Picture: Trevor Grundy).
Stone sculptures from Zimbabwe will be the main attraction at a forthcoming art exhibition at Oxford University. Hopefully, there will be more in it for Zimbabwean artists than hand-clapping and back-slapping, says TREVOR GRUNDY
A statement issued by Oxford University said the aim of the exhibition this coming September is to contextualise the legacy of Cecil Rhodes with depictions of religious art but also art which shows the the horror of forced labour and sexual abuse during the days when the country – then called Southern Rhodesia- was ruled by Europeans.
The statement said that Cecil Rhodes conquered large parts of Africa and made a fortune in diamonds and gold. He attended Oxford University (he paid his tuition fees with un-cut diamonds). He left Oriel a legacy amounting to around £10.5 million in today’s money to help students from southern African countries.
The exhibition will also feature stone sculpture work from some of today’s “greats” in Zimbabwe including the works of Wallace Mkanda and Gift Mutsauni.
Mkanda’s sculpture depicting the blind face of an African man was selected as the best of 110 entries and will be one of four winning sculptures on display at Oxford.
Legendary Zimbabwean musician Lucky Moyo admires a statue called Veiled Spirit Bride by the great Shona sculptor Bernard Takawira (Picture: Trevor Grundy)
Zimbabweans have long-since used stone sculpture as a form of story-telling.
The craft survived, despite attempt by many European Christian missionaries to erase local culture.
But after Independence in 1980 there was an un-precedented demand for Shona art works in the USA, Europe and Japan.
But over the last couple of decades artists have had a hard time selling their work overseas and even at home because of a significant drop in the number of people visiting Zimbabwe since Mugabe’s wasteful and violent farm invasions in 2000.
Fortunately for local artists, things are changing and more and more tourists are turning up in Harare, Bulawayo and the world-famous Victoria Falls.
British lovers of African art like business executive Chris Andrews from Saint Albans, England make a point of stopping over in Harare to see – and maybe buy – magnificent stone statues created by Shona sculptors (Picture: Trevor Grundy)
The exhibition at Oxford University will attract art lovers and stone sculpture buyers in their hundreds.
The exhibition is the brain-child of the Oxford Zimbabwe Arts Partnership (OZAP) which was formed in response to the Rhodes Must Fall campaign during the 2022 Black Lives Matter protests.
Anger flared up in America and it spread quickly to other parts of the world, especially Oxford University where – in front of Rhodes’s old college – students demanded the removal of a now well-guarded statue of a man who once bestrode the southern African world like a conquering colossus.