Miss January, a painting by Marlene Dumas, breaks price record

▲ Miss January, a 281 by 101 centimeter oil painting, resumes the exploration of the body that Dumas began with Miss World, a work he created when he was 10 years old. Photo by Christie's

Alondra Flores Soto

La Jornada Newspaper, Friday, June 6, 2025, p. 4

The painting "Miss January" by South African artist Marlene Dumas has fetched the highest price ever for a work by a living artist. The provocative 1997 portrait by one of today's most influential artists reached a new auction record at Christie's for $13.6 million.

However, despite the prominent position of female artists, they still fall far short of the sales of men. The most expensive work of a living man belongs to Jeff Koons's Rabbit , a sculpture that sold for $91.1 million in 2019. Before that, David Hockney sold Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), which sold for $90.3 million in 2018.

At the recent auction, Remedios Varo was part of an evening of significant results for female Surrealist painters, as her ethereal painting Revelation (also titled The Watchmaker) sold for $6.21 million, setting a new record for the Spanish-born painter, who emigrated to Mexico in 1941. Other women who achieved record sums included Dorothea Tanning, Simone Leigh, and Emma McIntyre.

In the sales dedicated to 20th and 21st-century art, with six auctions from May 12 to 15, Christie's in New York achieved $693 million. A unique Mondrian, Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, was the week's top lot, fetching $47.5 million, while Claude Monet's Peupliers au bord de l'Epte, crépuscule , sold for $42.9 million.

Jenny Saville had the title

The previous record for a living artist was held by Englishwoman Jenny Saville for her self-portrait, Propped (1992), which sold for $12.4 million in 2018. A Neo-Expressionist canvas featuring a nude female body, overflowing with flesh and skin, it was considered a challenge to standards of beauty; it highlights the extraordinary virtuosity and inventiveness of her style , and is one of the most influential paintings by a British artist in the last 30 years.

Marlene Dumas (Cape Town, 1953) stated that painting is about the human trace . This artist is known for addressing themes such as sexuality, race, and raw human emotion, challenging the minimalist trends of her time.

Sotheby's considered Dumas' use of color to be non-hierarchical and the artwork to reflect his exploration of human emotions and the body, making it a powerful and personal piece .

Born during apartheid, she emigrated to the Netherlands to continue her studies, where she continues to live and work today. Since she was a child, she enjoyed collecting photographs. As part of her professional practice, she compiles magazine and newspaper clippings, which she uses in her canvases. Women's heads; a photo of Osama bin Laden or Patti Smith; Girl with a Pearl Earring; or Picasso's portrait of Gertrude Stein; real events, such as a girl wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt, or a kidnapped girl in Russia—these are among the many subjects she uses to reflect on vulnerability and mortality and fill the soul with melancholy.

Miss January, a 281 by 101 centimeter oil painting, presents the portrait of a blonde woman wearing a semi-transparent blouse, naked from the waist down and wearing a red sock.

Monumental in its size and significance , it reached a record sale in New York on May 14 during the 21st-century art sale. Dumas's painting triumphantly masters and reclaims the female form , according to the auction house. It represents a motif of the female form he began exploring at age 10, when he drew "Miss World, " which depicted glamorous models.