Biography

1953: born in Cape Town, South Africa
1972-1975: studies Fine Art (B.A.), University of Cape Town
1976-1978: attends Ateliers ‘63, Haarlem
1979-1980: studies at the Psychological Institute, University of Amsterdam

 

Marlene Dumas grew up in Stellenbosch but has lived and worked mainly in the Netherlands since 1975. Through her focus on the human figure, Dumas merges themes of race, sexuality, and social identity with personal experience and art-historical antecedents to create a unique perspective on important and controversial issues of the day. Throughout the eighties she focused on representing the human body in ways that aggressively challenged societal norms and conventions. By the early nineties she had become a presence on the global art scene with solo exhibitions at various galleries in the world.

In 1998 Dumas published her selection of writings entitled, ‘Sweet nothings’. Of her writing, she said, “I want to participate in the writing of my own history.” A subsequent major exhibition of her work at the Museum of Hedendaagse Kunst in Antwerp and a retrospective of her works on paper at the New Museum of New York clearly indicated her stature within the international art community.

In 2007 the Metropolitan Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo held a significant retrospective of her art and in 2008 the Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles) and the Museum of Modern Art (New York) collated her work in a mid-career survey that firmly established her as a leader of contemporary western art. In the same year, ‘Intimate relations’, Dumas’ first solo exhibition in South Africa illuminated Dumas’ concern with the ethics of representation so pertinent to this burgeoning democracy and exposed many to a talent they had not encountered.

Dumas’ works are represented in amongst others, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the MoMA in New York, the MOCA in Los Angeles, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam, the Tate Modern in London and the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg. Her work has been displayed on the covers of contemporary art magazines (Artforum, Flash Art, Frieze) and numerous monographs have been published about her in different countries.

In 2011 Dumas has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Stellenbosch University because of her commitment to challenging representational stereotypes of gender and socio-political identity. She has also been honoured for the standing she has achieved in the international art community through her engagement with the medium of painting.

 

adapted version of text written on the occasion of the Honorary Doctorate for Marlene Dumas, Stellenbosch University, 2011