Page 23 - Zimbabwe Stone Sculpure 1st Edition

ThE hISTORY
Cyrene and Serima Missions – Canon Edward Paterson and Father John Gröber
Many years later, the role of Mission schools was important in starting the modern sculpture movement. In 1939, Canon Edward Paterson, a Scotsman, started Cyrene Mission near Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city. The mission is named after Simon of Cyrene, an African who carried the cross of Christ. He encouraged the young Africans to draw, paint and sculpt to give expression to their thoughts and beliefs. However Christianity, rather than traditional African beliefs, was the major influence on the art and sculpture that was produced at Cyrene and the sculpture was mainly in wood. Canon Paterson’s legacy continues to this day, though not in Christian form, at the Canon Paterson Art Centre, an artist community in Mbare near the city centre of Harare. Ernest Chiwaridzo and Zachariah Njobo are two important products of the Canon Paterson Art Centre though nowadays they both sculpt from studios at their homes in Harare.
Another mission, which influenced a young Nicholas Mukomberanwa, one of Zimbabwe’s internationally renowned sculptors, was Serima Mission near Masvingo, a town located near the famous Zimbabwe Ruins in the centre of the country. Father John Gröber, a Swiss priest, started the mission in 1948. He also established a school at the mission and art was part of the curriculum. He wanted the Africans to express their Christian teaching in an African context through art and he showed them African masks from West Africa to give them ideas. These masks had a great influence on the young students, which showed later in the sculpture that they produced, in wood and stone.
Although these missionaries encouraged sculpting, it was predominantly to help with the promotion of Christian beliefs amongst the local people so the subject matter was one dimensional. It was not until the idea of a National Gallery was proposed that this began to change.
Frank McEwen OBE and the National Gallery
In 1954, Frank McEwen came out from England on the invitation of a board, appointed by the then Southern Rhodesia government, to help with the design of the building of a National Gallery in the capital, Salisbury (Harare). McEwen had significant qualifications in the Euro- pean art scene. He had studied art history at the Sorbonne in Paris in
“The role of mission schools was important in starting the modern sculpture movement.”
FRANK McEWAN WITH HIS DAUGHTER- IN-LAW, ADLELE, AND GRANDCHILDREN
21