York's Shona Gallery
The
Blog
Stories of the artists and peoples behind the work: the sculptors, tribes, and traditions that have shaped our collection.
Richard Mteki
Richard Mteki was born in 1947 in Harare, Zimbabwe, the younger brother of the celebrated sculptor Boira Mteki. Growing up in proximity to one of the country's great artists planted...
John Type
John Type was born in 1963 in Harare and began carving stone in the late 1980s, drawn to the medium through contact with the Shona sculptural community that had grown...
Ngoni Chandigwa
Ngoni Chandigwa was born in 1968 near Mutare, in Zimbabwe’s eastern highlands, a landscape of granite ridges and mist-laden valleys that has long nurtured the country’s stone-carving tradition. He be...
Ndonye Mwanzilo
Ndonye Mwanzilo was born in 1967 in Zambia and came to the Zimbabwean stone-carving tradition as one of several artists from neighboring countries who found in the Shona sculptural community...
Gerald Takawira
Gerald Takawira was born in 1959 into one of Zimbabwe’s most celebrated sculptural families. The Takawira name is inseparable from the history of the Shona sculptural movement: John Takawira, Gerald’...
Denny Kanyemba
Denny Kanyemba was born in 1965 and developed his practice at Tengenenge, the sculptural community that became one of the most important incubators of Zimbabwean stone-carving in the post-independence...
Agrippa Ndongwe
Agrippa Ndongwe was born in 1958 in Harare and began carving stone in the early 1980s, as the Shona sculptural movement was entering its second phase of international recognition. He...
Damian Manuhwa
Damian Manuhwa was born in 1972 in Harare, a generation removed from the Workshop School artists who founded the Shona sculptural movement. Coming of age in post-independence Zimbabwe, he encountered...
Joseph Tozo
Joseph Tozo was born in 1960 and came of age at Tengenenge, the extraordinary sculptural community in Mashonaland Central that Tom Blomefield established in the late 1960s on his former...
Pfungwa Dziike
Pfungwa Dziike was born in 1975 in Harare and began sculpting in the late 1990s, studying under established Shona artists before finding his own formal language. The name Pfungwa, meaning...
Fungai Mwarowa
Fungai Mwarowa was born in 1955 in the Guruve district of Mashonaland Central, a region whose red earth sits above some of the finest stone deposits in Zimbabwe. He came...
Ben Apollo
Ben Apollo was born in 1969 and developed his practice at Tengenenge, the sculptural community that has proven to be one of the most enduring incubators of Zimbabwean stone carving...
Douglas Benhura
Douglas Benhura is among the most internationally recognized Shona sculptors of his generation, celebrated for a body of work that has found audiences and collectors on every continent. Born in...
Lincon Muteta
Lincon Muteta was born in 1978 in Harare and represents the fourth generation of the Shona sculptural tradition, artists who came of age not in the founding moment of the...
Coster Balakasi
Coster Balakasi was born in 1970 in Malawi and came to the Zimbabwean stone-carving tradition as an outsider, arriving from a neighboring country with its own sculptural traditions and finding...
Rose Chakanyuka
Rose Chakanyuka occupies a singular position in the history of Shona sculpture: she is among the very few women to have achieved sustained international recognition in a tradition that has...
The Shona Tribe
The Shona are the largest indigenous group in Zimbabwe, comprising roughly 80 percent of the country's population and divided into five principal clans: the Karanga, Zezuru, Korekore, Manyika, and Nda...