O Bebé Poeta (The Poet as a Child)

This painting by one of Mozambique’s best-known artists depicts a mother holding an infant, gazed upon by surrounding figures. The lighter skin color of the infant suggests that he is of mixed descent, born to an African mother and Portuguese father. Religious undertones are present in the arrangement’s evocation of the Christian motif of the Madonna and Child, as well as in the cross hanging around the child’s neck.

O Bebé Poeta may be a symbolic depiction of José Craveirinha, one of Mozambique’s greatest poets and a political activist of mixed heritage. Malangatana, who shared Craveirinha’s anticolonialist sentiments, created this painting during the rise of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), which sought independence from Portuguese rule. The work was donated in honor of Eduardo Mondlane, an alumnus of Oberlin College who went on to become a professor of anthropology and leader of FRELIMO. Although Mondlane was assassinated in 1969, his work bore fruit as Mozambique gained independence from Portugal in 1975.