History

The McEwan Movement

The real heroes of this early movement are of course the artists, and each one of the masters from the first generation is strongly represented in the Guthrie Collection.  But if we want to know why it was in this particular time and place that the miracle occurred, why in the second part of the 20th Century, in a country described as artistically barren that a great artistic awakening took place, then we must turn to Frank McEwan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McEwen

This is where it all began, with the charm and elegance of an English artist and curator, transported to Rhodesia in 1954, to help set up the Rhodes National Gallery in Salisbury.  

McEwen had lived for many years in Paris and was a close friend to several of the famous artists of the time, including Matisse, Picasso, Brancussi, Braque, and Leger amongst others.  He ran the first exhibition of Henry Moore in Paris and also organized exhibitions for the key impressionist in London.  

McEwan was a master of significant experience, and unimpeachable standards, but his real genius lay elsewhere.  Having accepted the job as Director of the Rhodes National Gallery, the mandate was to bring Western culture to the ‘artistic wastelands’ of Zimbabwe.  This he began to do.  But, eternally inquisitive and blind to colour, he became aware through enquiry, unlike his contemporaries, that the local workmen in the gallery, mostly from the Shona tribe, had a vibrant culture of their own, of spirituality and mysticism. 

Bravely he set about encouraging any one who would try their hand, to express this feeling in art. So it was that in a windowless storeroom in the bowels of the National Gallery, covertly for many years, without any backing from the Board, McEwan sponsored and encouraged the creative endeavours of a rag tag ensemble of willing souls, who were to become the greatest artists in Zimbabwe’s history.