By Dr Tony Monda

IT was serendipity that one of Zimbabwe’s best known sculptors stumbled upon his craft.
It is said September 10 1967 marked a milestone in the life of Henry Mudzengerere Munyaradzi.
He had recently married and was out of work.
Walking through the hills of the Great Dyke in Mashonaland Central, he heard the tap, tapping of tools hitting against stone.
On investigating, he saw several men shaping various images from natural rocks; he had stumbled upon a group of stone sculptors.
Henry soon joined them and his career as a sculptor had begun.
Born in Sipolilo (Guruve), in 1931, Henry Munyaradzi was the son of a spiritual traditional leader (mwana weMhondoro) of his community.
His place of origin in colonial times was referred to as Sipolilo Tribal Trust Land, situated 30 kilometres from Guruve, Mashonaland, in the far north of what was, in 1931, Southern Rhodesia.
As a child Munyaradzi was brought up by an uncle who was a local carpenter, and participated in traditional bira ceremonies and hunting; thus, his education was first-hand and practical.
A Shona speaker, Henry Munyaradzi never attended school.
Later he was greatly influenced by a local itinerant Christian preacher, Mukaera, whose Apostolic Church he joined and where he learned to read the Bible in Shona.
Munyaradzi worked as a carpenter, a village blacksmith, and tobacco grader before joining the Tengenenge Sculpture Community in Guruve 150 km north of Harare, in 1967.
Soon he became known as ‘Henry of Tengenenge’ (undoubtedly his name was too difficult for the white-settler farmer to pronounce).
Here he became one of the most significant sculptors to emerge from that community.
Munyaradzi derived his subject matter for his art from the natural Shona world, combining it with Christian imagery and depicting it in an unusual, deeply personal vision.
Henry Mudzengerere Munyaradzi was a quiet man; so self-effacing and down-to-earth that one might have totally overlooked him in a crowd of artists.
A well-respected London art critic Michael Shepherd wrote of Henry Munyaradzi:
“Michelangelo’s spiritual ideal of the individual form waiting to be released from the individual stone is even more apparent here (in Munyaradzi’s art), than in Michelangelo’s own marbles.”
I met Henry Munyaradzi in 1989 when he was in his prime.
He was a relatively quiet man.
As the young publicity officer for the Zimbabwe Association of Visual Artists, Craftspeople and Designers (ZAVACAD), under the auspices of the National Gallery, it was my responsibility to collate biographical and aesthetic information on all the artists, especially the Zimbabwean stone sculptors in those days.
Munyaradzi was particularly difficult to draw information from.
He was a quiet sage though, who never spoke or boasted about his work, but allowed it to speak on his behalf.
His sculpted faces with geometric features in a low relief style, portrayed equally balanced circular eyes on both sides of an elongated rectangular nose and a small incised slit represented the mouth.
He became one of the world’s most widely known and admired Zimbabwean sculptors.
For Henry, every object was alive with a life of its own – breathing, functioning and animated.
The ‘T-face’ animated a lion, a child, a lamb, a beautiful girl, and a mighty chief or fearless hunter.
Even tuber vegetables like potatoes – magwere, sweet potatoes – mbambaira; had faces, as did utensils and implements such as spoon head, hoe head, all assuming a life of their own.
A consummate sculptor, his work was meditative and gentle-spirited, and at times witty (mango head, badza head, etc), but always filled with a more profound cultural meaning in the subjects he explored.
Machinery, technological, agricultural and even meteorological symbols that were relevant to his agrarian way of thinking were animated in his sculptures.
The first astronaut was captured in ‘Apollo II’; his moon heads and sun heads, even his monumental sculpture of a praying mantis ‘The Great Insect God’, hammer head, spade head and others all alluded to indigenous Shona farmers’ lives and ways of living and the implements they used for farming.
Apart from being a sculptor, he was also an indigenous farmer.
A traditionalist in his choice of subjects, Munyaradzi’s early occupation as a village blacksmith, his terrestrial wisdom and knowledge beyond our ages are articulated in one of his favourite subjects – a simple animated stone sculpture of the ‘Hoe-Head’ (Badza).
The hoe in early Shona societies was a form of real economic currency and was used as a bride price.
Henry Munyaradzi participated in almost all Zimbabwean group sculpture exhibitions around the world and has won many awards and prizes.
His works are in many prestigious collections including: Chapungu Sculpture Park, Springstone International Art Gallery of Avondale and the National Gallery in Harare which has several pieces including ‘The Python’ (Shato) and ‘Lion Spirit’ (Mhondoro), among others in their permanent collection which the gallery holds in trust for the nation.
Several local commercial banks, who patronised the art in the past, also hold his pieces in their collections.
Following the inaugural Zimbabwe Heritage Exhibition in 1986, of Zimbabwean Contemporary Arts held at the National Gallery, during the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit held in Harare, his pieces attained premier value.
As a result of a successful one-man exhibition in London in 1984, he purchased a farm in Ruwa, where he lived with his wife, seven daughters and two sons and worked until his death.
Henry Munyaradzi died on February 27 1998.
He is buried in the Mukaera Christian Village on the outskirts of Guruve.
Dr Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) and Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, musician, art critic, practising artist and Corporate Image Consultant. He is also a specialist Art Consultant, Post-Colonial Scholar, Zimbabwean Socio-Economic analyst and researcher.
For views and comments, email: [email protected]