Sylvester Mubayi (1942 – 13 December 2022) was a Zimbabwean sculptor. [1]
Sylvester Mubayi was born in 1942 in the Chihota Reserve near Marondera, Zimbabwe, the sixth child in a family of nine. He left school aged sixteen and worked as a tobacco grader. In 1966 he moved to Harare (then Salisbury) and worked at the Chibuku Breweries. [2] [3]
Mubayi joined the Tengenenge Sculpture Community in April 1967 as one of its early members. [2] In 1969, Frank McEwen, who was the founding director of the Rhodes National Gallery in Harare, opened a workshop school to encourage the development of local artists and his wife Mary (née McFadden) established Vukutu, a sculptural farm near Nyanga: Mubayi was the first sculptor to work there. [4] McEwen lauded Mubayi as the "greatest sculptor of all time" [5] and after McEwen's death his bequest of sculptures to the British Museum included six pieces by Mubayi. [6] According to Jonathan Zilbert, Mubayi at that time used skeletons as a recurring theme in his work, intending them to illustrate ancestral spirits and blood sacrifice. [5]
An exhibition of sculptures which toured South African cities in 1968–9 included a stone carving Nzuzu (Waterspirit) by Mubayi and it won an Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Award for sculpture. [2]
Mubayi was an artist in residence at the Chapungu Sculpture Park [7] and subsequently lived and worked in Chitungwiza; his sculptures are inspired by stories of spirits and the supernatural, combining human and animal forms. The stones used include springstone and lepidolite. [3] [4] In 1988, Michael Shepherd, a British art critic commented: [2] [3] [8]
“Now that Henry Moore is dead, who is the greatest living stone sculptor? Were I to choose, I would choose from three Zimbabwean sculptors — Sylvester Mubayi, Nicholas Mukomberanwa and Joseph Ndandarika.”
The catalogue Chapungu: Culture and Legend – A Culture in Stone for an exhibition at Kew Gardens in 2000 depicts Mubayi's sculptures Protected by our Spirits (Springstone, 1999) on p. 34-35, Spirit Bird Prays for Rain (Springstone, 1997) on p. 90-91 and Returning to my Sekuru (Elder) (Springstone, 1997) on p. 98-99. [9] An exhibition of the same name toured in the US in 2003, with Mubayi's Traditional Healer presented at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Garfield Park Conservatory. [10]
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe held a retrospective of his life's work in August 2008 to much acclaim. Their permanent collection includes The Skeleton Man, and Witch and Her Mate. [3]
In 2017, Mubayi represented Zimbabwe at the 57th Venice Biennale. His sculpture exhibited there included Snail Crossing the River, Spirit Buffalo and War Victim. [11]
Mubayi died in Chitungwiza on 13 December 2022, at the age of 80. [1] [7]