Stories of Interest

John Takawira is said to be the first African stone sculptor to use rough and smooth textures on sculpture. It is also said that John named the very hard black stone ´´springstone´´ because when he tried to carve with the chisels he had available to him. The chisel sprung off the stone because it was too hard hence ´´springstone´´.

Kakoma Kweli an ´Angolan´ reputed to be 80 years old at the time basically walked and hitched lifts from Angola to Tengenenge to attend the funeral of his half brother who had died after a large sculpture had fallen upon him. He stayed at Tengenenge and was invited by the community to try his hand at carving. His very primitive work became famous and can be found in many major international collections.

Fanizani Akuda, born in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) migrated to then Southern Rhodesia to work in the tobacco industry. He worked for Tom Blomefield and when Tengenenge started worked at quarrying stone and delivering it to the artists. He showed great interest in what was happening. One morning he approached Tom Blomefield and told Tom that one of the artists was missing. Tom questioned him, asking him which artist was not there. Tom laughed and then told him that the tools had been placed there for him to try his hand at carving. Fanizani Akuda is today one of the famous first generation sculptors.

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