Sylvester Mubayi was born in 1942, the sixth child in a family of nine. He left school aged sixteen and worked as a tobacco grader.
Frank McEwen, the founding director of the National Gallery in Harare, and the person acknowledged to be the one who helped Shona artists and their work become world renowned, lauded Mubayi as the "greatest sculptor of all time"
After McEwen's death, his bequest of sculptures to the British Museum included six pieces by Mubayi!
He has been winning awards for his sculptures since the 1960's, and in 1988, Michael Shepherd, a British art critic commented:
“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.”
Mubayi died on 13 December 2022, at the age of 80. This was one of his last works.
12" in length x 5 ¾" in height, and a width of 4 ¼". This is carved from the incredibly hard black rock called springstone.
