MARLENE DUMAS PAINTING SETS NEW WORLD RECORD

A painting by the South African artist Marlene Dumas has sold for a massive $13.6 million. This means the 73-year-old’s painting now holds the record for the most expensive price for a work of art by a living female artist.

The painting, titled “Miss January”, was bought by an anonymous bidder at an auction held at Christie’s New York.

It was expected that the painting would be sold for between $12 million and $18 million.

A spokesperson for the auction said the price was “incredible”:

“We were thrilled with the outcome of our sale this evening. Through its monumental scale and singular subject matter, Miss January is truly the magnum opus of Marlene Dumas.”

Sarah Friedlander, deputy chairman of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s, said Dumas is known as one of the most influential painters in the world.

“In this painting, Dumas triumphantly demonstrates a formal mastery of the woman’s body while simultaneously freeing it from a tradition of subjection, upending normalised concepts of the female nude through the lens of a male-centric history.”

“Miss January” was painted by Dumas in 1997 and stands 2.82 metres tall. It revisits “Miss World”, an artwork she painted 30 years prior at the age of 10, in which she showcased the forms of 10 models.

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