The Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens unveils Cycladic Blues, a major exhibition devoted to Marlene Dumas paintings and graphics, running from June 5th to November 2nd, 2025. This marks the first solo museum exhibition in Greece for the celebrated artist, whose expressive style continues to influence contemporary portraiture. Curated by Douglas Fogle in collaboration with Dumas, the show stages a powerful dialogue between antiquity and modernity—pairing more than forty Marlene Dumas paintings and graphics with fourteen archaeological artefacts from the Museum of Cycladic Art’s collection.
This curated encounter between Marlene Dumas paintings and ancient Cycladic figurines highlights timeless themes: vulnerability, mortality, femininity, and transformation. The artefacts—dating from the Late Neolithic to the Classical period—were personally selected by Dumas for their sculptural intimacy, making their presence in the Museum of Cycladic Art feel both reverent and boldly recontextualized.
Central to Cycladic Blues are two monumental Marlene Dumas paintings, Old and Phantom Age (2025), inspired by a second-century sculpture of a Dionysian market woman. Here, Dumas offers dual perspectives on a single form, interpreting the past through two distinct painterly lenses. In another work, 50+ (2010–2018), Dumas captures the complexity of aging and identity in the haunting expression of a mature woman—one of the many Marlene Dumas paintings that confront myth and emotion head-on.
Themes of death and intimacy thread throughout the show. In Alfa (2004), a pale female face evokes the solemnity of a death mask, while family portraits like Helena and Eden (2020) reflect on tenderness, continuity, and the role of motherhood. A suite of twenty drawings deepens the emotional register of the exhibition, expanding on themes often found in Marlene Dumas paintings, from biblical allegory to personal memory.
Ultimately, Cycladic Blues at the Museum of Cycladic Art offers more than a retrospective—it positions Marlene Dumas paintings and graphics within an ancient lineage of figuration and feeling. The artist’s belief that painting is “the trace of the human touch” comes vividly to life in this Athens setting, where the contemporary and the classical meet in a shared language of form, loss, and connection.
Photography by PARIS TAVITIAN, courtesy of MUSEUM OF CYCLADIC ART