Best known for her monumental sculptures that seem to defy gravity despite being made of bronze or marble, Stella Shawzin created a fascinating body of work that shines a light on the secrets of the human form with great detail and tenderness. Shawzin passed away in 2020, at the age of one-hundred, leaving an incredible sculptural legacy as a key practitioner of South African modern art.

Shawzin was born in 1920 in Transvaal, South Africa, where she witnessed the racial discrimination and social division fuelled by Apartheid. She was fascinated by performing arts from an early age and she went on to train as an actor, singer and dancer, subsequently acting in plays and films in England in her twenties.