Inácio MATSINHE, 1945

Inácio Matsinhe was born in Maxixe, Mozambique in 1945. He is one of the great names of today's Mozambican plastic arts.

Strongly connected to his home country, his paintings and ceramics scream with live and warm colours: reds, yellows and cobalt-blues and sometimes nostalgic violets and greens.

Matsinhe enters the Decorative Arts School still very young, by the age of 17 and by 1976 he is awarded the first of two scholarships from the prestigious Gulbenkian Foundation. This opportunity to study abroad was absolutely influential in his career. Inácio Matsinhe first studied ceramics at the Pietro Vannucci Fine Arts Academy in Italy. In 1977 he attended the Polytechnic Institute Sir John Cass - School of Arts in London. That same year, Matsinhe opens his atelier in Alfama, Lisbon, where, besides teaching art, he offers other artists an exhibiton space.

Matsinhe has exhibited regularly since the 60's all over the world from Portugal and Spain to Great Britain (African Center- London) or the United States (World Surrealist Exibition - Chicago). His work is represented in several important national and international private collections but perhaps his most emblematic piece is the gigantic tile panel placed on one of the most important arteries in Lisbon.

source: "Cerâmica e Escultura" (2002) - C.Bajouca ; "Arte 98" (1998) - F.I. do Carmo