Martha Nassibou Biography

Martha Nassibou, daughter of Dejazmatch Nassibou Zamanuel and Woizero Aztede Babitcheff, was born in Addis Abeba in 1931. Shortly after the Italian invasion of Ethiopia she was taken with all her family to Italy where they lived as captives of the Fascist government from 1936 to 1944. Read about her eventful childhood in her recently published memoirs.

She attended the International School in Geneva and studied art at the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris and the Art Students League in New York.

Martha was drawing and painting already as a child. Her first exhibition was held in 1945, when she was only 14, organized by the Ministry of Commerce in Addis Abeba on the occasion of the visit of Queen of Greece.

She later worked for the Ethiopian Ministry of Education, who commissioned her to illustrate school books for children.

Since 1964, she has been living in Europe where she has continued to paint, exhibit, and execute commissioned work consisting mainly of portraits and large thematic canvases of Ethiopian inspiration. Martha has taught drawing and painting to both children and adults.

Although she favours oil and pastel, she likes to experiment with new media and has lately produced some electronic paintings.

Martha is also a writer and a poet. She has recently published a book to honour the memory her father, Dejazmatch Nassibou Zamanuel, hero of the Ethiopian struggle against the occupying Italian army.

Martha has three children and three grandchildren. She lives in the south of France where she paints and writes.