Malangatana - The Mozabmiquan Painter, Poet and Hero

On my first trip to Mozambique I fell in love with a painting that is hanging in the library at CISM.  It is dark and moving.  But it touched me.  I asked about it and was told it was painted by a Famous Artist from Mozambique

Painting from the Library at CISM

When I returned to Mozambique the airplane magazine had an article on the Artist Malangatana.  Immediately I knew he was the artist of the painting.  Addicted to the articles in the magazine I was impressed as much by his life as I was by his art.  He was artist, a politician, a protester, a poet, and more. 

He challenged Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique.  He refused to show his art in South Africa after the arrest and jailing of  Nelson Mandela.  He participated in committees that renamed the streets of Maputo after the Portuguese left.  And he made amazing art!