Shona Carving Thumbsucker - Africa Direct

Shona Carving Thumbsucker 60713 - Africa Direct 

All contemporary Shona sculpture was made after 1965. Frank McEwan, an Englishman, who was director of the Rhodes National Gallery in what was then, Southern Rhodesia, began a school in 1956, and in 1965 encouraged the students, who had been painting, to move to stone. See Oliver Sultan's Life in Stone. I have a huge collection of Shona pieces in rapocco, green and black serpentine, leopard rock, and verdite--some are four feet tall! In our extensive time in Zimbabwe, we saw an enormous amount of wonderful sculpture. We did the largest amount of our buying from a wonderful co-op of about forty artists. My partner apprenticed with them, and learned to repair sculpture, which she has done for galleries, museums, and private collections. Instead of putting pieces in the fire, as they do in Zimbabwe, we use space heaters, hair dryers, and pots of boiling water.