Malangatana Ngwenya

Malangatana Valente Ngwenya (6 June 1936 – 5 January 2011) was a Mozambican painter and poet. He frequently exhibited work under his first name alone, as Malangatana. He died on 5 January 2011 in Matosinhos, Portugal.

Born in Matalana, a village in the south of Portuguese Mozambique, Ngwenya spent his early life attending mission schools and helping his mother on the farm, while his father worked in the Transvaal region as a miner. After his mother suffered a mental health crisis, Malangatana lived by himself, supported by relatives for a period. At the age of 12, he went to the city of Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) to find work, becoming ball boy for a tennis club in 1953. This allowed him to resume his education, and he took night classes, through which he developed an interest in art. He was encouraged by Augusto Cabral, a member of the tennis club, who gave him materials and helped him to sell his art, and also by Pancho Guedes, another member of the tennis club.

In 1958, Ngwenya attended some functions of Nucleo de Arte, a local artists' organization, and received support from the painter Ze Julio. The next year Ngwenya exhibited publicly for the first time, as part of a group show; two years later came his first solo exhibition, at the age of 25. After his initial Mozambique debut, Malangatana began to receive international attention. Helped by his association and promotion from Pancho Guedes, with whom he would co-exhibit during his first international exhibition in Nigeria in 1961. This kicked off a period of prolific international exhibitions for Malangatana, and he would go on to exhibit in South Africa, Nigeria, Rhodesia, Angola, France, England, Pakistan, India and, possibly, the USA over the next three years.

In 1964, Ngwenya, who had joined the nationalistic FRELIMO guerrilla, was detained by the PIDE, the Portuguese secret police of the Estado Novo regime, and spent 18 months in jail. He was given a grant from the Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation in 1971, and studied engraving and ceramics in Portugal, Europe. Back to Mozambique, Africa, his art was exhibited several times in both Lourenço Marques and Lisbon until Independence.

After the independence of Mozambique, due to the events of the Carnation Revolution of April 1974, Ngwenya openly rejoined FRELIMO, now the single-party communist organization that was ruling the new country, and worked in political mobilization events and alphabetization campaigns. In 1979, he participated in the exhibition Moderne Kunst aus Afrika, which was organised in West Berlin as part of the program of the first Horizonte - Festival der Weltkulturen.

After 1981, he worked full-time as an artist. His work was shown throughout Africa, and is in the collection of the National Museum of African Art in Washington, DC. In addition, he executed numerous murals, including for FRELIMO and UNESCO. A large mural by him decorated the stairwell of the original building housing the Africa Centre, London, in King Street, Covent Garden. The mural was installed in the new premises of the Africa Centre, opened in Southwark in June 2022.

Ngwenya also helped to start a number of cultural institutions in Mozambique, and was a founder of the Mozambican Peace Movement. He was awarded the Nachingwea Medal for his Contribution to Mozambican Culture, and was made a Grande Oficial da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique. In 1997, he was named a UNESCO Artist for Peace and received a Prince Claus Award.

He was awarded a degree honoris causa by the University of Évora in 2010.