'Mother and Child' is an original springstone sculpture signed by the Zimbabwean artist Nelson Mutumbuki. The sculpture presents a theme beloved by Shona artists: motherhood. In the sculpture, two highly abstracted figures move together in lyrical synchrony, their bodies and heads only suggested by curving rectilinear forms and rounded shapes and each having nearly the appearance of the scroll of a violin or cello. Nelson Mutumbuki was a young man – aged only twenty-three when he completed this sculpture. He went to school through his primary level, after which he came to sculpture while working in the studio of the sculptor Gideon Zimuto. There he would have learned to reveal such elegant moving forms from the hard surface of stone.

springstone 
18.5 x 6 x 3 inches, sculpture
0.5 x 12 x 12 inches, base
19 x 12 x 12 inches, overall
signed "Nelson Mtubuk" along bottom
acquired directly from the artist
overall good condition; some scattered scratches throughout; repaired horizontal crack along mid-body of mother figure; small loss atop mother head