UNIQUE in the domain of stone sculpture is woman artist Agnes Nyanhongo, who is regarded as the most renowned and revered female stone sculptress in Zimbabwe.
She is an important major contributor to the history of post-Independent contemporary Zimbabwean art. Born in 1960 in Nyanga, she comes from a traditional Shona family. She is the daughter of Claude Nyanhongo and sister to Gideon Nyanhongo, Wellington and Euwitt, all of whom are also sculptors.
Agnes was influenced and trained by her father Claude Nyanhongo, a founder First-Generation sculptor from Nyanga, who had the virtue/foresight of encouraging his daughter and believing in her talent and ambition to pursue her dream. Having exhibited for over three decades, her artworks have traversed the generations and movements of stone sculpture in Zimbabwe, which still remain relevant and classic to this day.
She began exhibiting her large-scale sculptures in important museums and galleries locally, regionally and internationally in the early 1990s, and her work has been the subject of several national retrospective exhibitions of Zimbabwean art including the prestigious Yorkshire Sculpture Park exposé in 1990.
At the start of her career her sculpture was the lone voice of women’s emancipation in the arts. She was one of the first students to train at the BAT Workshop School in Mbare in 1988 and flourished in the 1990’s in the Zimbabwean cultural milieu.
The sculptural output which has poured forth from Agnes’s untiring energy is prodigious. She is best known for her evocative female figures that express the fortitude and resilience of women; their legendary figures dominate her thoughts and concepts, to reveal her reflective observation and strong sculptural knowledge of facial features.
In 1978 at the age of 26, she was awarded a National Merit Award for her sculpture.
Early in her career, she introduced the full anatomical female figure in her body of work. A custodian of culture, Nyanhongo’s broadmindedness, originality and affirmation of the expressive potency of the African female form has been inspirational for many artists, both male and female.
Several exquisite examples of her monumental art works are exhibited at Chapungu Sculpture Park and Atlanta International Airport in Georgia, USA. An admirer and connoisseur of Nyanhongo’s regal style is renowned Zimbabwean interior and industrial designer and lecturer, Dr. Michelina M. Andreucci, who regards her work as exceptional – she comments:
“Sculpting stone is a physically demanding feat requiring patience, skill and dexterity; Qualities that Agnes exemplifies. She upholds the status of women sculptors, and her work reads like a Shona narrative and thesis on indigenous women’s resilience, design skills and cultural importance as keepers and purveyors of indigenous culture. …Agnes’s sculpture pays tribute to the fortitude of indigenous woman….”
The interpretation of a work of art is often as interesting and as valid as the study of the artist and the society in which they live. This is primarily true of Agnes Nyanhongo and her work.
Her work is rendered with tenderness and a powerful sculptural realisation of its form. There is an expression of warm affection in the manner in which the eyes of her sculptures are downcast. The enveloping tenderness of maternity, the heroism of women in classical sculpture and the vitality insight and tenderness are born of an understanding and love for humanity and her culture.
Over the years, Agnes Nyanhongo’s use of the female figure poised in frontal verticality has been visionary and emotionally evocative as is evidenced in several of her works. She engages the female form in evocative local settings of work, worship, leadership and agrarian productivity and maternity.
Much of her work has been characterised by social comment and traditional content. Always with a cause in her sculptural content, she addresses issues such as the nature of traditional culture and its groundedness in indigenous communities. The strong, noble poses speak of the power of women.
An example is Nyanhongo’s sculpture in green opalstone entitled “Woman of Authority” (2002) is 2,76m high weighting over 90k. It exhibits the quiet dignity of a woman clutching a staff (tsvimbo), normally reserved for men and seen in the piece to denote her social spiritual status.
The metaphor for strength and fortitude of women is extended in her figurative sculptures which deal with the identity, roles and gender of the Zimbabwean woman and the consequences of liberation upon the careers and conditions of women in Zimbabwe. Her sculptures are also metaphors for self-composure (kutsiga) and suggest that African women present themselves as reserved, composed proud and dignified. The theme of motherhood periodically occupies a place of importance in Agnes’s’ work.
Although mostly narrative in her approach, in the course of her career she has experimented and innovated with her work stylistically although she retained her traditions which she holds dear. Agnes has produced some of the most enduring stone sculptures within her tradition, replete with ancient wisdom and cultural gestures that are idiosyncratic to the Shona people. Her work is ageless and relevant to our times, especially in this day and age when our culture is being ripped apart at its roots.
Her sculptures embody well articulated surfaces in a stylised naturalism and precision of form which gives her works the appearance of monuments. Symbolic figures of African women whose overall appearance is one of grave simplicity, requires subtle and sophisticated sculpting techniques to articulate.
Nyanhongo’s work elicits a visceral response from audiences and its content is tied to our ancestral roots, our socio-cultural mannerisms and cultural codes. African wisdom contained in the content of her sculptures has been an inspiration to many women artists who have emulated her example and picked up hammer and chisel to forge a profession in stone themselves. The veritable triumph of women artists over the past thirty years locally, regionally and internationally assures them of a space in the history and making of a National Contemporary Heritage.
Agnes Nyanhongo has exhibited in Germany, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Switzerland, UK, USA, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Italy and Zimbabwe. She is respected, both as an artist and a symbol of women’s artistic prowess in contemporary figurative sculpture. Her practice of stone sculpture has made her a very successful and self-sufficient Modern Zimbabwean woman.
Women artists such as Agnes Nyanhongo are endowing the nation with national treasures, perceived from a woman’s perspective and offering a woman’s profound view of Zimbabwean art and culture.
Dr. Tony Monda holds a PhD. in Art Theory and Philosophy and a DBA (Doctorate in Business Administration) and Post-Colonial Heritage Studies. He is a writer, musician, art critic, practising artist and Corporate Image Consultant. He is also a specialist Art Consultant, Post-Colonial Scholar, Zimbabwean Socio-Economic analyst and researcher.
E-mail: [email protected]