Artist Database

Wopko Jensma was a South African poet and artist. Born in 1939 in Ventersdorp in the Transvaal, he grew up in Middleburg in the Eastern Cape. Between 1961 and 1964, Jensma pursued a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree (sculpture) from the University of Pretoria. In 1965, he was enrolled in a Teacher’s Diploma at the University of Potchefstroom but had to abandon it due to a motorcycle accident. After his recovery, Jensma travelled through Africa, settling for a time in Botswana with his wife, Lydia, and their three children. The family was unable to live in South Africa during this time because theirs was an interracial marriage, illegal in the country during apartheid. Through his art and poetry, Jensma conveyed his deep criticism of the apartheid regime. He produced drawings, woodcuts, linocuts, and other works on paper in an abstract style.

Jensma and his wife split up in the late 1960s and he returned to South Africa, settling in Johannesburg. The artist suffered from schizophrenia and by the late 1980s, he was living in the Salvation Army Men’s Home in Simmonds Street, Johannesburg. He disappeared without a trace in August 1993.