Zephania Tshuma, 1932-2000
Biography

Zephania Tshuma (also spelled Zephania Tsuma) was born in 1932 and lived in the Ndebele-speaking region of southwestern Zimbabwe, near the South African border. Self-taught, he worked outside Zimbabwe's better-known tradition of Shona stone sculpture, instead carving and hand-painting wood into brightly coloured figures that fused the sacred and the profane — animal-human hybrids, caricature and biblical imagery rendered with a raw, expressive humour.

Alongside his art practice, Tshuma served as a District Manager of the Red Cross and as mayor of his village. In 1983 he won first prize in a national sculpture competition organised by the Zimbabwe Ministry of Culture for his work "Christ in the Striped Pyjamas." His carvings, often described as "modern fetishes," addressed biblical themes and contemporary social issues, including, in his later work, the AIDS crisis in southern Africa.

Tshuma's work entered the Jean Pigozzi Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC), Geneva, and was exhibited internationally, primarily in Germany, Denmark and Belgium. He died in 2000.

source: Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC), Jean Pigozzi Collection