Bertina Lopes (1924 -2012) is considered the mother of contemporary African art.

Origins and Studies

Bertina Lopes was born in Maputo, Mozambique, in 1924 to a Mozambican mother and a Portuguese father.

She studied painting in Lisbon where she attended the fine arts academy and met famous painters.

In 1953 she returned to Mozambique and taught painting and drawing at a women’s college. She exhibited her work there for the first time in 1956  and married poet and journalist Virgilio de Lemos with whom she had two children.

In 1961 she had to leave Mozambique for political reasons, and she got a scholarship from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Lopes’ last public appearance was at the 2011 Venice Biennale.

Bertina Lopes in Rome

In 1963 Bertina Lopes moved to Rome where she mixed with artists and intellectuals like Carlo Levi, Marino Marini, Emilio Greco, Renato Guttuso, Franco Gentilini, and Lorenzo Guerrini.

In 1965 she married Francesco Confaloni and settled permanently in Rome, which was a different city than it is now in many ways. There were very few European artists and Bertina Lopes may have been the only African artist in the city. Her biography testifies to the difficulties she had being recognized for her work, especially her abstract works, and she was never represented by any galleries.

Galleria Astrolabio in Rome

Bertina Lopes showed for the first time in Italy at Galleria Astrolabio in Rome in 1970 presented by critic and journalist Marcello Venturoli.

Enrico Crispolti, Simonetta Lux, Nello Ponente, and Dario Micacchi also presented Lopes at galleries in Venice.

She was in many solo and group shows in Italy and abroad (Spain, Portugal, Mozambique, Angola, Cape Verde, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Great Britain, Cuba, Sweden, Finland, and the USA).

Awards

1975 First International Prize for Painting, Corfù

1988 Grand Prix d’Honneur from the European Union of Art Critics

1991 presented with the Rachel Carson Memorial Foundation World Prize at the Institute for African Culture in Rome for her artistic and humanitarian merits.

1992 Pleiade International Award for art, Sala del Cenacolo, Rome

Exhibitions

1973 and 1979 Calouste Gulbenkian

1986 retrospective at Palazzo Venezia, Rome.

1993 retrospective at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon

1996 thematic exhibition at FAO, Rome

2002  retrospective at the Palazzo della Cancelleria Apostolica, Rome

Honors and Awards

1993 appointed “Commander of Arts” by President Mario Soares in Lisbon. 

1998 awarded the Fra Angelico International Prize in Rome.

 

Painting

Her painting privileged her maternal Mozambican roots. Like many others of her generation, her art was steeped in social criticism and the nationalism of her native country.

Her vivid paintings reflect a dual identity that was the leitmotif of all her work, which blends Western influences with her African roots.

In our shop

In our product catalogue you can find abstract and brightly coloured artworks  by Bertina Lopes

She took an original, explosive approach to colors and themes, often combining her extraordinary abstract constructions with reclaimed materials to gradually establish her identity as a painter.

Totem of 1979 is a striking example of this, as are the artwork on our site 

Bertina Lopes. Via XX Settembre 98. La casa come luogo di resistenza 

An exhibition of her work on at the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome.