Gallery

Shona Serpentine Sculpture

ProMax

Shona stone sculpture emerged from Zimbabwe's Great Dyke serpentine belt in the 1950s, as Tengenenge and National Gallery workshop artists began carving springstone, opalstone, and leopard rock into smooth, rounded abstract heads and figures. The stone is heated by open flame, then finished with beeswax and carnauba, drawing up a deep, oiled green that shifts from yellow-green through brown to near-black, threaded with honey-amber mineral veins. This design system channels that dark, waxed surface directly — no paper ground, no gallery white, just polished stone with a soft specular sheen and abstracted forms emerging from shadow.

Learn more about the Shona Serpentine Sculpture style

  • OriginZimbabwe (Great Dyke serpentine belt), Southern Africa
  • Period1950–1990 (Zimbabwean stone-sculpture movement, National Gallery / Tengenenge era)
  • DesignerTengenenge workshop sculptors · National Gallery of Zimbabwe workshop school · first-generation Shona carvers
  • MovementsZimbabwean stone sculpture ("House of Stone") · Abstracted serpentine carving · Tengenenge school

Web examples

3

Slide examples

3