Henry Munyaradzi
Born in Guruwe 1931, Died 1998.Henry Munyaradzi’s background, like his life and work, is deceptively simple as it is remarkable. His father, a spirit medium, left the family when Henry was very young and from this point on, Henry’s childhood and upbringing was typical of rural Zimbabwe at the time-herding cattle and hunting game with dogs, spears and bows and arrows. He did not go to school and until his death in 1993 could neither read or write, He became the village Blacksmith and Carpenter and eventually formed a small group of tobacco graders, going from farm to farm seeking contracts to grade tobacco.
However, in 1967, out of work as a result of sanctions against Rhodesia, he stumbled across the Tengenenge Sculptor’s Community set up by Tom Blomefield. Ignoring the large powerful work by Bernard Matemera and Josiah Manzi, he began to sculpt, preferring to work alone and from the beginning with individual strength and powerfully original imagery. As a result he quickly established himself as the leading artist of the community, but left to work alone in 1975.
His work began to be included in exhibitions early on in his career-his first exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, for example, was in 1968. From that time he was exhibited both in group and individual shows world wide and the striking linear images in his sculpture made it some of the most internationally popular of all the Zimbabwean artists. Following a very successful one-man exhibition in London in 1984, he was able to purchase his own farm , where he worked , gaining inspiration from the rural surroundings until his death.
The strength of his sculpture lies in its purity of form-technique and imagery are honed down to pin point the essence of his subject in the simplest of terms. The confident lines and clear-cut geometric incisions have often been compared to Klee (an artist of whom Munyaradzi will never have heard)-but these symbols and his love for a finished product of great beauty and calm have been present in his work from the very beginning. His subject matter is taken from the natural world around him and only an intimate knowledge of this world can produce such minimal, but precise expression. He says’ All my thoughts are from nature. If I am walking along and I see an ant in a pool of water, I am the ant. I feel him drowning, I will save him. I am the ant. If I see a guinea fowl, I go into the bird, I feel how it is to be a guinea fowl- I become part of him. As I work stone, I can put this feeling into stone. Then there is a guinea fowl in the stone, the feeling of being a guinea fowl.”
He greatly respects the stone he uses and is often inspired by its original shape. It is an intense relationship with the material as he works spontaneously, neither drawing nor measuring. Despite its apparent simplicity the work cannot be reproduced, and he constantly works to express in new ways his themes of contemplation and spirit in his relationship with the natural world and with his personal Apostolic faith.
Henry Munyaradzi has participated in almost all the major group exhibitions as well as many one man shows on London, Los Angeles, Berlin, Heidelberg and Harare. His work is found in Permanent Collections of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Chapungu Sculpture Park and in Museums an private collections throughout the world.
We remember Henry as a man of steadfast faith, exceptional artistic ability and outstanding integrity.