{"id":116327,"date":"2023-07-28T17:18:37","date_gmt":"2023-07-28T16:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egidimadeinitaly.com\/ecomsite\/?post_type=artisti&p=116327"},"modified":"2026-10-03T22:08:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T21:08:52","slug":"bertina-lopes","status":"publish","type":"artisti","link":"https:\/\/egidimadeinitaly.com\/en\/artisti\/bertina-lopes\/","title":{"rendered":"Bertina Lopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mozambican artist Bertina Lopes<\/strong> (Louren\u00e7o Marques, now Maputo, 1924 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

Bertina Lopes Biography: Origins and Training<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 Virg\u00edlio de Lemos, with whom she had two sons.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Bertina Lopes in Rome<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Painting of Bertina Lopes<\/h2>\n

In her paintings, Mozambican artist Bertina Lopes<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Exhibitions and International Recognition<\/h2>\n

The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation held a solo exhibition of her work in 1972<\/strong>, followed by the 1993 retrospective Express\u00e3o Art\u00edstica entre Duas Civiliza\u00e7\u00f5es<\/a><\/em>. 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.<\/p>\n

Bertina Lopes died in Rome in 2012. Research and international exhibitions have continued to bring renewed attention to her work:<\/p>\n