Page 17 - Zimbabwe Stone Sculpure 1st Edition

Foreword
It would be hard to find another person so immured in knowledge and appreciation of the flowering of Zimbabwe stone carvings as Stuart Danks.
Born in the Matabeleland area of Zimbabwe, he grew up amongst artists and sculptors. He and his friends camped and explored in the Matopos Hills, rich in monumental outcrops of granite and rock paintings from time immemorial. When young, he worked in the Bulawayo National Gallery with his mother Jean, herself an accomplished painter, helping to mount exhibitions. Whenever Stuart came to help, I could sense an absorbing interest in the works being selected; an interest which grew and eventually led to Stone Dynamics Gallery, a name that epitomises the rising tide of stone sculpture that emerged in the 1950s and 60s.
Here is a book that will answer so many questions and open so many eyes, enabling one to reach a little deeper into the feelings and emotions that inspire these works. They are a magnificent blend of the physical – the texture, colour and surface of the stone used – and the spiritual, which create a delight in viewing the finished works.
The success of Stone Dynamics Gallery reflects Stuart’s dedication to the practical needs and hopes of the artists as well as his understanding of their problems. This sensitivity, combined with a strength of mind when coping with the practical side of transport and care of great weights of stone, both finished and unfinished, to their eventual gallery positions for viewing, purchase and subsequent delivery, convey a level of expertise that is hard to match.
As a working sculptor myself, I can see the immense benefit of this book, which gives an interesting and rather essential background to the activities of Stone Dynamics Gallery. It will enhance people’s under- standing of a great creative activity.
Gillian Kaufman F.R.B.S.
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