Zimbabwe Shona Sculpture Scam

One of the most powerful tools in authentication is the process photograph — an image taken during the creation of a work, showing the artist’s hand in direct contact with the stone. When such photographs exist, they transform provenance from an abstract claim into a visible, verifiable fact. This post presents exactly that: a side-by-side comparison of an authentic Bernard Matemera sculpture with a fake of the same composition, anchored by a remarkable set of photographs documenting Matemera creating the original work during a workshop residency in Cadier en Keer, the Netherlands, in 1998. The Composition: Bird-Mother The subject is one of Matemera’s signature forms — a bird-human hybrid in a hunched, self-contained posture, the great curving beak sweeping downward toward the body, the form revealing itself as female — two breasts clearly articulated beneath the beak. The composition is closed and self-contained, simultaneously powerful and tender. It is unmistakably Matemera: no o...

Here is the testimony of a collector who bought a sculpture by Henry Munyaradzi which turned out to be a fake. I live in Paris and I have been collecting Shona sculptures from Zimbabwe for about fifteen years. I write this article, not to settle accounts, nor to denounce anyone, nor to obtain something, but to alert collectors and encourage them to be vigilant. In November 2008, I bought a sculpture from an American gallery: ****** Gallery. The purchase was made by internet on photos. It is a piece signed Henry Munyaradzi, a first generation artist, recognized and exhibited all over the world. The title is "Protecting owl", carved in black serpentine, signed "Henry" under the base, 52 cm high, 25 cm wide, sold for $900 and comes with a certificate of authenticity. I received my owl and I lived happily with it until September 2022 when I read several articles on the internet which are concerned about the proliferation on the market of fake sculptures from Zimbabwe re...