The stones in the exhibition

Voice: Roy Guthrie


All of the stone comes from Zimbabwe. When we first started
the sculpture movement 50 years ago we couldn't find stone.
But today, there is stone found all over the country and stones
of great beauty and different strengths and different hardnesses.
So it ranges from the springstone, which is very hard serpentine,
to the opal stone, which is a softer green serpentine, through to
granites and dolomites and marbles and limestones and then some
very unique stones like verdite, which is probably the rarest of the
3 great green stones; jade, malachite and verdite. Verdite is only
found in 2 deposits in the world and the highest quality verdite
comes from Zimbabwe.

So, the artists have used all of these different stones. The best artists
prefer the hardest stones and so they don't work in the soft soap
stones and soft serpentines, but use only the harder stones. But we
are rich in stone; we have beautiful stones throughout the country.