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Concept
John Takawira
Résumé
John Takawira (1938 - 8 November 1989) was a Zimbabwean sculptor. The background to the sculptural movement of which he was a leading member is given in the article on Shona art.
Takawira was born in Chegutu, the son of a policeman, but grew up in Nyanga where he was educated at the Mount Mellersay Mission School. He was deeply influenced by his mother, Mai, who had an imposing personality and a talent for story-telling based on her knowledge of Shona myths. She was also a potter. Bernard and Lazarus (es), his younger brothers, became sculptors and John retained many elements of his traditional upbringing throughout his life.
At the age of twenty, Takawira was introduced to sculpture by his uncle, the sculptor Joram Mariga. Almost immediately he was noticed by Frank McEwen, the founding director of the new Rhodes National Gallery who invited him to become among the first members of the Workshop School at what is now the National Gallery of Zimbabwe; from 1963 his work was exhibited there. In 1969, McEwen's wife Mary (née McFadden) established Vukutu, a sculptural farm near Inyanga; when the School moved there Takawira followed, becoming one of its most important figures from 1969 until its closure in 1976. In this period pre-independence, the white Rhodesian government saw the Vukutu artists as a politically motivated group and John was at one time arrested for carrying stones, which was seen as a provocation.
John Takawira contributed his sculpture Skeletal Baboon to an exhibition called Arte de Vukutu shown in 1971 at the Musée National d'Art Moderne and in 1972 at the Musée Rodin. These were arranged by McEwen, who had lived and worked in Paris prior to his appointment in Harare. The piece was an enormous success, being called by Charles Ratton the "finest art to emerge from Africa in the twentieth century". Almost immediately Takawira's international reputation was made and he became a full-time professional sculptor.
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