Fanizani Akuda

Fanizani Akuda was born in 1932 in what was then Northern Rhodesia and moved to Zimbabwe in 1949 looking for work, holding jobs as a cotton picker, bricklayer and farm manager before joining Tengenenge in 1966 as a quarryman digging serpentine.

Given tools and encouragement by Tom Blomefield, he became one of the celebrated first generation of Zimbabwean carvers. His work is known for its warmth: smiling figures, family groups, playful interactions between people and animals, marked by a carved slit-eye that became his signature.

Over more than four decades his sculpture was exhibited across Germany, Denmark, the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, Cuba, Australia and South Africa, and is held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe. He died in February 2011, aged 78.