Pioneering art collection returns to Zimbabwe after 70 years

By FARAI MUTSAKA
Associated Press

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — A compelling art exhibit, “The Stars Are Bright,” has opened at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe of paintings done in the 1940s and 1950s by young Black students at Cyrene Mission School, the first to teach art to Black students in what was then white minority-ruled Rhodesia. Using bold strokes and bright, lush colors filling the entire canvases, the students depicted African life in dance, household chores and hunting wildlife alongside the emerging modern world of railroads and electricity lines. The exhibition has returned the paintings to the country, where many Zimbabweans will see them for the first time.