Nicholas Mukomberanwa

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.

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.

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.

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 McEwan helped get this piece and others international exposure abroad.

Mukomberanwa married his first wife, sculptor Grace, in 1965 and they had eight children.

In 1965, he decided to end his career with the police to become a sculptor full-time.

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 the period 1965–1980, Nicholas's work, together with the works from other leading members from the Workshop School such as Sylvester Mubayi, Joram Mariga and Joseph Ndandarika were an integral part of the Shona Sculpture Movement.

The "first generation" of new Shona sculptors were given international exposure despite the sanctions being imposed on Southern Rhodesia thanks to McEwen.

Three of the early works three by Nicholas and the works of many of the first generation artists, are now in the McEwen bequest to the British Museum.

In 1968, Ulli Beier wrote "'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 Nyanga, 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.

He eventually quit his job in the police to become a sculpture full-time

The Gambit paid off, and by the late 1970s and in the 1980s his work was being shown in many venues.

His work has been exhibited in galleries around the world.

He also became mentor to many artists in Zimbabwe, including his children Anderson Mukomberanwa, Ennica Mukomberanwa, Lawrence Mukomberanwa, Netsai Mukomberanwa, Taguma Mukomberanwa,Tendai Mukomberanwa and nephew, Nesbert Mukomberanwa who are also sculptors.

He remains one of Zimbabwe's most famous artists.

International exhibitions, in which Nicholas's sculptures were included, up until Frank McEwen's resignation as museum director in 1973, are listed below.

Mukomberanwa was a central part of the early "Shona sculpture Movement".

During the 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.

In 1976, Nicholas resigned from the police to become a professional sculptor and by 1977 had a sold-out show of works at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg.

In 1978, he arranged to buy a farm near Ruwa from Roy Guthrie, founder of the Chapungu Sculpture Park, and it was there that he settled with his wives (he had married his second wife Betty in 1976) and family.

Using his earnings from his works, Mukomberanwa invested in farmland and was considered by many to be one of the ablest farmers in Zimbabwe.

Nicholas Mukomberanwa (1940–12 November 2002), was a Zimbabwean sculptor and art teacher.

He was among the most famous protégés of the Workshop School at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe.

He was a mentor to the Mukomberanwa Family of sculptors.