MARLENE DUMAS

Early Years

Marlene Dumas was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1953 and grew up on a vineyard. She achieved her BA in Fine Arts from Cape Town University in 1975, then moved to the Netherlands to study art at Ateliers 63 (now De Ateliers) in Haarlem, concentrating on collage rather than painting. Moving to the Netherlands from apartheid-era South Africa gave her a different perspective on her homeland, which she has explored in artworks—she has said that her appreciation of art changed when she moved to Europe and was able to see paintings in real life rather than in books. Dumas studied psychology for a year at Amsterdam University, although decided not to become an art therapist. She was one of the youngest artists to take part in documenta 7, in 1982. During the mid-1980s she began to exhibit in galleries and museums around the world. She still lives and works in the Netherlands.

Artworks

Dumas asks us to consider what it is to live as a human in a world shaped by cultural and political expectations. She has frequently looked towards global politics and news events for her inspiration—growing up in a South Africa where pictures of Nelson Mandela were banned may have influenced her unflinching attitude to discussing the world (she has said that when she first moved to Europe she sought out what was prohibited at home).

One example of this is her 2010 exhibition Against the Wall, which examined walls of Israel and Palestine. The images display vulnerability and tension, often ambiguously presented—what we think we can see may be not what is actually on the canvas.

She has frequently painted the female body, and asks us to challenge traditional views of female nudes—for example, in 1999’s Miss Pompadour, an oil painting in which a woman bends around to show us her anus and labia.

• The Image as Burden (1993) is a small oil painting featuring a grey figure carrying a paler figure. Dumas’ source material was Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor in the 1936 movie Camille, although the picture has been interpreted as the idea of the artist carrying the image itself.
• Humans take centre stage in both Dumas’ Great Men (2014–) series, a group of ink portraits of gay and bisexual artists and writers, made in response to anti-gay legislation in Russia, and The First People I–IV (1990), four panels featuring four babies painted at a large scale.

Marlene Dumas: Select Awards

• Johannes Vermeer prize (2012)
• Rolf Schock prize for visual arts (2011)
• Düsseldorf Art Prize (2007)

Marlene Dumas: Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Liaisons, Musée du Louvre, Paris (2025–)
• Cycladic Blues, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens (2025)
• Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2022)
• Myths and Mortals, David Zwirner, New York City (2018)
• Forsaken, Frith Street Gallery, London (2011)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls, Zeno X Gallery and Zeno X Storage, Antwerp and Antwerp Borgerhout (2008)
• The Second Coming, Frith Street Gallery, London, United Kingdom (2004)
• All is Fair in Love and War, Jack Tilton/Anna Kustera Gallery, New York City, United States (2001)
• Youth and Other Demons, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo, Japan (1996)
• Give the People what they want, Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium (1993)
• The Artist as a Young Girl, Galerie Flatland, Utrecht, Netherlands (1984)

Select Group Exhibitions

• David Zwirner: 30 Years, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, United States (2024)
• On Paper: Natasja Kensmil, Ellen Gallagher, Marlene Dumas, Kara Walker, Andriesse Eyck Galerie, Amsterdam (2021)
• Portrait (part II), Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo, Japan (2017)

Further reading

• Marlene Dumas’s artist page at David Zwirner
• Marlene Dumas’s official website
• A 2024 interview from the Guardian

Marlene Dumas FAQs

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