My People
- Artist: Bertina Lopes
- Date: 1968
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1200 × 800 × 22 mm
- Museum: Tate Modern
- Collection record: Tate Modern website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the "My People" by Bertina Lopes, painted in 1968 during Mozambique’s fight for independence. The oil on canvas brings together a tight group of figures, their skin rendered in unsettling blue tones against a red backdrop that hints at disease and death. In the centre a green, lifeless body lies on another, arms outstretched, while in the foreground a gaunt, round‑bellied youth is carried by someone hovering above. Lopes’ early style—black contour lines, raised hands and wide‑open eyes—makes each expression feel raw and desperate. The work is a stark reminder of poverty, malnutrition and the looming specter of death that defined life in colonial Mozambique. It also reflects Lopes’ own exile to Rome, where she continued to denounce Portuguese rule and fight for social change through art.
See it in person
My People is in the collection of Tate Modern on Bankside, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
