Marlene Dumas

A press release from Christie’s auction house spotlights Marlene Dumas’ 1997 painting Miss January, and predicts that with an estimate of $12 – $18 million it will become the most expensive work by a living female artist when sold on Wednesday May 14th.

Marlene Dumas: Fifty Years of Art Ephemera is an online exhibition showcasing a collection of gallery cards, brochures, posters, and other promotional materials tracking Dumas’s long career.

Traveling is not easy these days but it was well-worth it to visit Venice and have the opportunity to view the exhibition Marlene Dumas, open-end at the Palazzo Grassi.

Recognized as one of Europe’s most successful painters, Dumas has exhibited at top galleries and museums. For Americans who might be less familiar with her work, Gallery 98’s online Dumas exhibition of announcement cards and photographs, spotlights both career highlights and well-known images.

The large solo exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice running through January 8, 2023, further expands the painter Marlene Dumas’ remarkable fifty-year career consisting of scores of exhibitions at top galleries and museums, as well as, impressive auction sales.

When Marlene Dumas was commissioned to design a coaster for Café Schiller, a popular bar in Amsterdam, she found her inspiration in Charles Baudelaire’s poem, Be Drunk. The poem resonated with Dumas, whose youth was spent on her family’s vineyard in South Africa, and whose personal “drunkenness” of choice has always been art making.