Mozambican artist Bertina Lopes (Lourenço Marques, now Maputo, 1924 – Rome, 2012) was a painter and sculptor. She made Rome her home, developing a personal language that brought together African memory, artistic experimentation, and political commitment. Her work moves between figuration and abstraction, reflecting her experiences in Mozambique, Portugal, and Italy.
Bertina Lopes Biography: Origins and Training
Born to a Mozambican mother and a Portuguese father, Lopes continued her artistic education in Lisbon. There, she encountered Portuguese modernism and European avant-garde movements. These experiences contributed to her development while the cultural references of her native country remained central to her work.
In 1953, she returned to Mozambique, where she taught drawing and painting. Her relationships with writers and poets accompanied her anticolonial commitment. She married the poet Virgílio de Lemos, with whom she had two sons.
In 1962, a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation grant enabled her to study ceramics in Lisbon with Querubim Lapa. A further grant supported her move to Rome in 1964.
Bertina Lopes in Rome
In Italy, Lopes continued to develop her work while maintaining close ties with Mozambique. She married Franco Confaloni in 1965. Her Roman home and studio became a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, and members of African and European communities.
Her political commitment remained closely connected to her art. Exile, opposition to colonialism, and the affirmation of cultural identity run through her work. Nancy Dantas explores these themes in an essay published by MoMA post.
The Painting of Bertina Lopes
In her paintings, Mozambican artist Bertina Lopes brings figures, masks, and totemic forms into dialogue with fragmented space. Intense color and assertive marks give her compositions a forceful presence. The addition of varied materials extends the relationship between the painted surface and relief.
Throughout her career, Lopes explored changing relationships between figuration and abstraction. In her later works, freer gestures and color relationships became increasingly prominent. Materials play an active role in this exploration, drawing attention to texture, layering, and compositional rhythm.
Exhibitions and International Recognition
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation held a solo exhibition of her work in 1972, followed by the 1993 retrospective Expressão Artística entre Duas Civilizações. In Rome, her exhibition history includes retrospectives at Palazzo Venezia in 1986 and Palazzo della Cancelleria Apostolica in 2002. Her work was also shown at the FAO headquarters in 1996.
Bertina Lopes died in Rome in 2012. Research and international exhibitions have continued to bring renewed attention to her work:
- 2023–2024: Rome’s Museo delle Civiltà presented Via XX Settembre 98, la casa come luogo di resistenza, an exhibition devoted to her home and studio.
- 2024: her work was included in Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere at the Venice Biennale.
- 2025–2026: her work was presented at the 36th Bienal de São Paulo.
Bertina Lopes Artworks at the Gallery
Egidi MadeinItaly offers two mixed media works on card by the artist, also known as Mama B. Created in the early 2000s, they offer a close view of her freedom of gesture and engagement with materials.
Il canto della natura, 2002
Mixed media on card, 35 × 25 cm, with a dedication, signature, and date on the reverse. Green, yellow, and red forms gather at the center of the light background.
→ View Il canto della natura by Bertina Lopes
La vita ha tante strade, ma tu conosci la tua?, 2001
Mixed media on card, 35 × 25 cm. Metal washers and threadlike elements intertwine with the paint. The dedication on the reverse is dated September 29, 2001.
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