
Helene Love-Allotey
Head of Department
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Head of Department
While predominantly avant-garde in appearance, Bertina Lopes' work synthesises a proud nostalgia for Mozambique, the country of which she was born and then politically exiled in 1964. A dynamic figure not only in her approach to art but also on the political floor with her nationalist ideologies, Lopes' work reflects her boldness in her motivated development for modernism and anticolonialism.
Informed heavily by Portuguese modernist studies during her time in Lisbon, Lopes felt passionately to pursue these interests in her move back to Mozambique. Upon returning to Mozambique in 1953, a country at this time rife in anti-colonial movements, poetry and activism, Lopes and her husband, Virgilio de Lemos, pressed their strong political standpoints. These resolute political views would ultimately lead to the Lopes' political exile, yet she would continue to formulate works such as the present lot, reminiscent of the crafts and textiles of Mozambique.