Notes

The Beer Drink on the Mountain is a landmark sculpture by Brother Andrew, thought to be a Catholic brother from Serima Mission, one of a handful of mission stations in Zimbabwe that specialised in teaching wood carving. The piece was originally bought in Zimbabwe by the well-known Johannesburg art collector, Adeline Pohl, in about 1973. The invoice says it was carved by ‘Brother Andrew’ but little is known for certain about the artist other than his name. Tragically, he was rumoured to have been murdered by ZANLA guerrillas in about 1977. Serima Mission, near Masvingo, formerly known as Fort Victoria, was one of the three main centres in the country that taught wood carving, the others being Cyrene Mission, near Bulawayo, and St Faith’s Mission, near Rusape, where the artist Job Kekana taught. Brother Andrew is thought to have studied at Serima Mission because the figures in the present lot somewhat resemble, stylistically, the carved figures that embellish St Mary’s Church, designed by Father John Groeber of the Swiss Bethlehem Mission, which was completed in 1956. Groeber was responsible for teaching wood carving at the mission and he also established Driefontein Carving School, which produced some of Zimbabwe’s great stone carvers, and to which Brother Andrew may have followed him.

The Beer Drink on the Mountain is carved from a single piece of indigenous hardwood and is a triumph in its expression of a fast disappearing traditional rural culture.

Sarah Hudleston