Maria Lamas was born on 6 October 1893 in Torres Novas.

In 1910 she married Teófilo José Pignolet Ribeiro da Fonseca, with whom she had two daughters (Maria Emília and Maria Manuela). The following year she left for Angola, where she lived with her husband until 1913.

Back in Lisbon, she divorced and married for the second time, in 1921, to journalist Alfredo da Cunha Lamas, with whom she had a third daughter (Maria Cândida).

Her professional and life career was strongly marked by her work in favor of human rights and the equality and emancipation of women. Between the 1940s and the end of the Estado Novo, she took an active part in democratic organizations and made political interventions in opposition to the regime that led to her being imprisoned several times (1949, 1950-1951 and 1953) and exiled to Paris (1962-1969).

Recognised as one of the first professional women journalists in Portugal, Maria Lamas began her career at Agência Americana de Notícias (1920), by the hand of journalist Virgínia Quaresma, and later collaborated with various newspapers and magazines such as O século, O Almonda, A Joaninha, A voz, A capital, Diário de Lisboa and Civilização magazine.

She distinguished herself as editor and director of the women’s magazine Modas & Bordados (1928-1947), a supplement to the newspaper O século.

Using various pseudonyms, she published poems, chronicles, novels, pamphlets, and texts aimed at different audiences, publishing around 20 books. She was also a translator.

She was a member of national and international organisations for peace, equal rights for women and human rights, such as the National Council of Portuguese Women (CNMP) and the World Peace Council. She also took part in the Third World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (1957).

Some of the photographic images that Maria Lamas took for the book As mulheres do meu país were shown for the first time at the exhibition Au féminin – Women Photographing Women 1849–2009 (Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian, Paris, 2009), curated by Jorge Calado; in 2024, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation dedicated the exhibition Maria Lamas and Her Women to her, which showed a large part of her photographic work.

Maria Lamas was honoured with the rank of Grande-Oficial da Ordem da Liberdade (1980). Her archive has been in the National Library of Portugal since 1993, ten years after her death in Lisbon.