Sylvester Mubayi
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Sylvester Mubayi (1942 – 13 December 2022) was a Zimbabwean sculptor.[1]
Later life and exhibitions
Mubayi joined the Tengenenge Sculpture Community in April 1967 as one of its early members.[2] In 1969, Frank McEwen, who was the founding director of the Rhodes National Gallery in Harare, opened a workshop school to encourage the development of local artists and his wife Mary (née McFadden) established Vukutu, a sculptural farm near Nyanga: Mubayi was the first sculptor to work there.[4] McEwen lauded Mubayi as the "greatest sculptor of all time"[5] and after McEwen's death his bequest of sculptures to the British Museum included six pieces by Mubayi.[6] According to Jonathan Zilbert, Mubayi at that time used skeletons as a recurring theme in his work, intending them to illustrate ancestral spirits and blood sacrifice.[5]
An exhibition of sculptures which toured South African cities in 1968–9 included a stone carving Nzuzu (Waterspirit) by Mubayi and it won an Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Award for sculpture.[2]
Mubayi was an artist in residence at the Chapungu Sculpture Park[7] and subsequently lived and worked in Chitungwiza; his sculptures are inspired by stories of spirits and the supernatural, combining human and animal forms. The stones used include springstone and lepidolite.[3][4] In 1988, Michael Shepherd, a British art critic commented:[2][3][8]
“Now that Henry Moore is dead, who is the greatest living stone sculptor? Were I to choose, I would choose from three Zimbabwean sculptors — Sylvester Mubayi, Nicholas Mukomberanwa and Joseph Ndandarika.”
The catalogue Chapungu: Culture and Legend – A Culture in Stone for an exhibition at Kew Gardens in 2000 depicts Mubayi's sculptures Protected by our Spirits (Springstone, 1999) on p. 34-35, Spirit Bird Prays for Rain (Springstone, 1997) on p. 90-91 and Returning to my Sekuru (Elder) (Springstone, 1997) on p. 98-99.[9] An exhibition of the same name toured in the US in 2003, with Mubayi's Traditional Healer presented at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Garfield Park Conservatory.[10]
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe held a retrospective of his life's work in August 2008 to much acclaim. Their permanent collection includes The Skeleton Man, and Witch and Her Mate.[3]
In 2017, Mubayi represented Zimbabwe at the 57th Venice Biennale. His sculpture exhibited there included Snail Crossing the River, Spirit Buffalo and War Victim.[11]
Selected solo or group exhibitions
- 1971 Sculpture Contemporaine des Shonas d’Afrique, Musée Rodin, Paris, France[12][13]
- 1978 MOMA, New York, USA
- 1990 Contemporary Stone Carving from Zimbabwe, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK[14]
- 2000 Chapungu: Custom and Legend – A Culture in Stone, Kew Gardens, UK[9]
