By Jim Merk
\nMay 2, 2007<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/collennyanhongo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/4cdc69ead9bd8.image_.jpg\")
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Artist Collen Nyanhongo (left) helps his brother, Gedion Nyanhongo, prepare a sculpture for viewing in the exhibit “Chapungu: Nature, Man and Myth,” at the Missouri Botanical Garden. “Rhino Man” was made of serpentine by artist Bernard Matemera, who died in 2002.<\/p>\n
The everyday people, creatures of legend and animals of Zimbabwe come to life in “Chapungu: Nature, Man and Myth,” an exhibit that opened Saturday at the Missouri Botanical Garden.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The exhibit, consisting of 23 monumental, hand-carved sculptures by 19 African artists, will be on display in much of the garden through Oct. 31.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
All but one of the sculptures is different from those in a similar exhibition, “Chapungu: Custom and Legend, A Culture in Stone,” a major exhibition that made its U.S. debut at the Garden in 2001.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The one statue that was in both exhibitions was “Chief Consults with Chapungu,” a powerful opal stone sculpture by the late artist Biggie Kapeta; it stands in front of the garden’s Ridgway Center. Many of the artists who did sculptures for the 2001 exhibition also contributed works for this one.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Chapungu (pronounced Cha-POONG-goo) is based on the Beteleur Eagle, a powerful bird of prey that can fly up to 300 miles in a day at 30 to 50 miles an hour. The Shona people of Zimbabwe believe that the Chapungu bird is a messenger of the gods and a good omen that brings protection and good fortune.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Bringing the exhibit to St. Louis is Roy Guthrie, curator of the Chapungu Sculpture Park in Loveland, Colo. A native of Zimbabwe, Guthrie now lives in Loveland. He has 38 years’ experience in his field.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sculptures are a fairly new thing for Zimbabwe and started around 50 years ago, Guthrie said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
“We were a country described as ‘artistically barren’ in terms of the visual arts,” Guthrie said. There were fine crafts, though, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Then the artwork erupted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
About 50 years ago, the first director of the new national gallery in Zimbabwe (then called Southern Rhodesia) encouraged local people to create art. With that, a boom in stone carving started.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Many of the sculptors would start in a style and continue in it without stopping, Guthrie said. “It seemed almost as though they had a predetermined style,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n