As Black History Month winds down so do the final days of the Zimbabwe Shona Stone Sculpture Exhibition on the campus of Morgan State University.
The exhibit at the studios of WEAA 88.9 FM at 4905 Perring Parkway on the third floor of the Communications building is part of the ongoing WEAA Artists Gallery, which showcases outstanding local and international artists.
The closing reception for the exhibit will be Feb. 28 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at WEAA and is sponsored by AXA Advisors, which provides financial services and products for its clients.
“AXA is helping to present this art to the broader community and at the same time facilitating an opportunity to invest in it,” said Lewis Hudnell, one of the Shona exhibition’s curators. “It will be a different type of gallery talk, which will include members of Morgan’s history department who will talk about the art from several aspects, but specifically in terms of Zimbabwe sculpture, and in the broader context African art,” Hudnell added.
Hudnell has been involved in fine art for more than 40 years as a gallery owner, collector, private art dealer and broker. In 1974, he founded the Bradford Lewis Gallery in Washington, D.C., the first Black gallery in the Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights neighborhood of the city.
Beverly Carter, who is also a curator of the Shona exhibition, has worked with Hudnell on several cultural endeavors over the years. They both worked on the exhibit, “Transcending Integration,” a major exhibit of contemporary Black American ceramic artwork presented by Baltimore Clayworks in 2011.
Carter, an attorney has been active in Baltimore’s arts community for more than 20 years was an incorporator and was on the board as treasurer of Soulful Symphony, and served as chair of the Joshua Johnson Council at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
The Zimbabwe exhibition, which opened in January, features more than two dozen sculptures from the South African nation of Zimbabwe. Shona Sculpture is part of an art movement, which emerged in the 1960’s and has been hailed in many art circles on the international art scene.
The sculptures are provided by Colin Thompson, a native of Zimbabwe and founder of Zimbabwe Gallery, one of the leading suppliers of Shona Sculpture throughout the United States.
“It’s an important art from and I’m honored to be in the position to come from Zimbabwe and bring it to the United States where it has been received with such a tremendous response,” Thompson said.
“People are very attracted to the art form and the message the art conveys. It’s a unique art form only to Zimbabwe and nowhere else in the world,” Thompson added.
