South African born artist Marlene Dumas, 71 year old, has made headlines in the art world by selling her 1997 painting “Miss January,” for a staggering R245 million (~US $13.6 million), which is the most anyone’s ever paid for a piece by a living female artist. Dumas painted the almost 2.82 m or 111.5 inches tall portrait when she was 44 years old and it plays with ideas of beauty and objectification through bold, yet vulnerable imagery.
Marlene Dumas was born in Cape Town, South Africa, back in 1953. She went to the University of Cape Town to study art. After moving to Amsterdam in 1976, she studied psychology. Dumas’ style is full of emotion and she tackles identity, sexuality, race and politics, often using edgy figures. People think of Dumas as one of the best artists from Africa and she’s famous across the globe. You can see her work in top museums like MoMA, Tate Modern and LACMA.
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Miss January: Iconic and Groundbreaking
“Miss January” was originally made for an exhibition in Amsterdam in 1998. It depicts a nude figure wearing only a pink sock, a purposeful commentary on eroticism and the portrayal of the media. The consignment of the Rubell family provided a huge provenance having shown publicly all over the world and owned by important collectors. Christie’s called it Dumas’s “magnum opus.”
The $13.6 million hammer price went above the low estimate of $12 million, eclipsing the former record established by Jenny Saville. The sale has important symbolic value, according to art advisors, as a victory for representation and gender equity in a traditionally Eurocentric market.
Dumas has won the Rolf Schock Prize in 2011 and the Johannes Vermeer Prize in 2012. Her poignant portraits are making waves in conversations across the world, “Miss January” will continue the same discourse, making a significant impact among art historians, critics and collectors for generations to come.
