The Story of Marlene Dumas' Record Breaking "Miss January"

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The Story of Marlene Dumas' Record Breaking "Miss January"

Courtesy Christie's New York

Auctioneer Yu-Ge Wang sells Miss January by Marlene Dumas for $13.6 million.

On May 14, 2025, Miss January, an oil on canvas by the South African artist Marlene Dumas, sold at Christie’s New York for $13.6 million, the highest price ever achieved at auction by a living female artist. Dumas’s painting had been consigned by Mera and Don Rubell, founders of the Rubell Museum in Miami, and the proceeds of the sale will allow the couple to continue collecting and supporting emerging artists. Sara Friedlander, Deputy Chairman, Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie’s, explains the relevance of Dumas’s work: “Through its monumental scale and singular subject matter, Miss January is truly the magnum opus of Marlene Dumas. Dumas triumphantly demonstrates a formal mastery of the woman’s body while simultaneously freeing it from a tradition of subjection, upending normalized concepts of the female nude through the lens of a male-centric history.”

Created in 1997, the painting was inspired by images from a pornographic magazine and by a drawing, titled Miss World, that Dumas made when she was only 10 years old. Miss January portrays a blond woman, naked from the waist down, standing defiantly in a contrapposto pose with her hands resting on her hips. The dark background enhances the nudity of her legs and the white-powdered face with smeared eyeliner and gloomy lipstick. There is no inviting smile, no perfectly curated make-up or hairdo, no elegant, rehearsed posture. The unworn pink sock, crushed underneath her right foot, adds a level of disheveled casualness that highlights the sense of disregard for the viewer’s opinion. The size of the painting—it’s over 9 feet tall—further intensifies its intimidating aspects. By presenting a non-stereotypical beauty-contest winner, Dumas breaks expectations while provoking and unsettling the viewer.

Courtesy Christie's New York

Marlene Dumas, Miss January, oil on canvas, Painted in 1997. 111 x 40 in. (281.9 x 101.6 cm.)

Dumas was born in Cape Town, where she studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Her painting career began in 1973 and initially explored her identity as a white Afrikaner woman in South Africa during the apartheid years. In 1976, she relocated to the Netherlands, where she attended Atelier ’63, an independent art school, and also studied psychology at the University of Amsterdam. Dumas is known for her emotional and psychologically layered works and is widely considered one of the most influential painters of the contemporary era.

Photographs of friends, lovers, and family members, as well as images cut from art books, explicit magazines, and newspapers, are the raw material for Dumas’s art. These images are then stripped to their essence and imbued with meaning. Dumas explores sexuality, femininity, the male gaze, love, death, the aging process, and contemporary political issues through her use of vibrant colors in contrast with muted, flat backgrounds. “At the moment my art is situ ated between the pornographic tendency to reveal everything,” Dumas has written, “and the erotic inclination to hide what it’s all about.” While viewers might feel an initial discomfort or rejection in front of Miss January, the painting manages to repeatedly draw one in and inspire empathy. Dumas’ ability to reveal through concealment is her artistic strength and allows her to create portraits that represent not just people but emotional and psychological states that are the cornerstones of human life.

Christie’s sale is relevant not only because of Miss January’s memorable price, but also because three out of four records that night were set by female artists—Cecily Brown, Simone Leigh, and Emma McIntyre. Although sales are still male-dominated, Dumas’ achievement indicates that female artists have been making steady progress in the art market. The widespread hope is that higher auction prices will boost visibility for female artists and broaden their recognition and interest among museums and commercial galleries.

*This article originally appeared in Art & Object Magazine's Fall 2025 issue.

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