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Nicholas Mukomberanwa (1940 - 12 November 2002) was a Zimbabwean sculptor and art teacher. He was among the most famous products of the Workshop School at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and an art mentor and teacher to the Mukomberanwa Family of sculptors. His work has been exhibited in galleries around the world and he remains one of Zimbabwe's most famous artists. ==Early life and education== Mukomberanwa was born in the Buhera District of the Manicaland Province in 1940. He was named Obert Matafi, first-born son of his father Marakia’s second wife Chihute, who died when Obert was two years old. From then on he was brought up by Marakia’s first wife Maiguru. In 1958 at the St Benedicts Mission, Obert was baptised Nicholas and took the surname Mukomberanwa in honour of an ancestor.〔Guthrie R. "Nicholas Mukomberanwa", The Gallery Shona Sculpture (Pvt) Ltd, Published by Z.P.H., Zimbabwe, 1989, ISBN 0-949225-83-5.〕 Nicholas attended Zvishavani Primary School while his father worked at the nearby King Asbestos Mines. Art was not taught at school but by the time he was 15 Nicholas had produced his first sculpture in clay. By the age of 17 he was accepted at St Benedicts Mission, Chiendambuya, where he was recognised as skilled in painting and drawing and so was encouraged to move to the Serima Mission, Masvingo Province. There, Father Groeber encouraged sculpting and the craft of woodcarving and Nicholas encountered a blend of traditional Christian iconography and tribal African pieces. Mukomberanwa was heavily influenced by the drawing, patterning, and carving lessons he learned from Groeber and the school's art teacher Cornelius Manguma. Mukomberanwa produced his first art works while at the school, producing six carvings for the Serima church. These include four cement angels in the tower, as well as two wood angels for the chapel.〔E. Morton, "Father John Grober's Workshop at Serima Mission." 2012. https://www.academia.edu/6779301/Father_John_Grobers_Workshop_at_Serima_Mission〕 However, after a productive year at Serima, Mukomberanwa was expelled and moved to Salisbury (now Harare), taking a job as an officer in the British South Africa Police, where he remained for 15 years (1962–76).〔 Even though his year at Serima was brief, his style was decisively shaped by his experiences there. His work was typically architectural, carved on only one side. Additionally, in his later geometric phases, he relied heavily on patterning learned at Serima.〔Elizabeth Morton, "Patron and Artist in the Shaping of Zimbabwean Art." In G. Salami and M.B. Visona, eds., A Companion to Modern African Art. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2013, 242-3.〕 Nicholas was still drawing for recreation and in 1962 he met Frank McEwen, then director of the National Gallery of Rhodesia (today the National Gallery of Zimbabwe), who encouraged him to take up stone carving. McEwen provided materials and training in a workshop in the Gallery basement, and soon Mukomberanwa was sculpting in his free time, producing his first stone piece ''The Thief''. Thanks to McEwen, the "first generation" of new Shona sculptors were given international exposure despite the sanctions being imposed on Southern Rhodesia in the period 1965-1980 and Nicholas’s work joined that from other leading members from the Workshop School such as Sylvester Mubayi, Joram Mariga and Joseph Ndandarika. Early works by many of the first generation artists, including three by Nicolas, are now in the McEwen bequest to the British Museum. International exhibitions, in which Nicholas’s sculptures were included, up until Frank McEwen’s resignation as museum director in 1973, are listed below. *1964 International Art Exhibition, Lusaka *1965 New Arts from Rhodesia, Commonwealth Arts Festival, Royal Festival Hall, London *1968 Rhodesian Sculpture, toured South Africa *1969 Contemporary African Arts, Camden Arts Centre, London. *1970 Sculptures Contemporaine de Vukutu, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris *1971 Sculpture Contemporaine des Shonas d’Afrique, Musée Rodin, Paris *1972 Shona sculptures of Rhodesia, ICA Gallery, London During its early years of growth, the nascent "Shona sculpture movement" was described as an art renaissance, an art phenomenon and a miracle. Critics and collectors could not understand how an art genre had developed with such vigour, spontaneity and originality in an area of Africa which had none of the great sculptural heritage of West Africa and had previously been described in terms of the visual arts as artistically barren.〔Arnold, M. I. (1981) ''Zimbabwean Stone Sculpture''. Louis Bolze Publishing, Bulawayo. ISBN 0-7974-0747-2〕〔Mor F. (1987) ''Shona Sculpture''. Jongwe Printing and Publishing Co, Harare. ISBN 0-7974-0781-2〕〔Winter-Irving C. (1991). ''Stone Sculpture in Zimbabwe'', Roblaw Publishers, Harare, ISBN 0-908309-14-7 (Paperback) ISBN 0-908309-11-2 (Cloth bound)〕〔Sultan, O. (1994) ''Life in Stone: Zimbabwean Sculpture – Birth of a Contemporary Art Form''. ISBN 978-1-77909-023-2〕 Mukomberanwa married his first wife, Grace, in 1965 and they had eight children.〔 Eventually, in a risky move, he decided to end his career with the police to become a sculptor full-time. The gambit paid off, and by the late 1970s and in the 1980s his work was being shown in many venues. He continued to hone his skills over the following decade, developing one of the most distinctive personal styles found in his generation of Zimbabwean stone sculptors. In 1968, Ulli Beier wrote 〔Ulli B. "Contemporary Art in Africa", Pall Mall Press, London, 1968, ISBN 0-269-99283-9〕 "Mukomberanwa’s sculpture is full of ideas and inventions, he has a great variety of attitudes and expressions and he likes to portray whole clusters of intertwined figures. He works in many different stones, continuously using textures and colours. The mood of his sculptures is always meditative, sometimes religious, and they are of a very high quality." In 1969, Frank McEwen’s wife Mary (née McFadden) established Vukutu, a sculptural farm near Inyanga, and in 1970 McEwen arranged for Nicholas to have a sabbatical from the police and spend 6 months there working on large pieces of black Penhalonga serpentine that would form part of the Musée Rodin exhibition.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Nicholas Mukomberanwa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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